Been a long while since I posted. Big changes afoot.  Moved back to the northeast this fall, leaving Santa Fe.  New Mexico was a great adventure and I will always love it there. It is the geographic location of a big part of my soul- the other part being in the Adirondacks.   I’m happiest surrounded by mountains and space.  And I am happiest looking up at them, not down from them.  I like a long, flat walk.  

So why come back to the grey, damp, cold northeast?  Family.  I was feeling like I was watching my grown kids thru a telescope.  Their lives were unfolding in wonderful ways and I was a peripheral watcher.  I’ve never been a helicopter mom, but I was missing the informal visits, the quick updates on a job interview, the mutual dog sitting, the small events, etc.  I was missing all the small happenings that I cherish.  

I still find it such a pleasure to watch my kids eat.  When they were growing up they all were fussy at different times about food- but outgrew it.  I loved it when my son brought friends home after school who stayed for dinner and left no leftovers.  At Thanksgiving last month it was fabulous to do a pot luck and discover that in 4 out of 5 of the young couples there the men were the foodies and cooked.  And it was really, really good.  There were dogs underfoot, a 3 year old, and a couple of pregnant women.  It was a full house.  Even my ex and his girlfriend were there.  The modern family- and I was here to be a part of it.

 I notice with this next generation that “family” applies to those they care about.  They are a close knit group, and cultivate a familial bond I envy.  At one point, some years ago, one of my daughters was sharing an apartment in NYC with her half sister from her dad’s second marriage, her half brother from my second marriage, and her ex-sister-in-law.  A modern family.

We need to take our family where we find them.  We need to cultivate those bonds and nurture them.  I came east in time to be woven back into the lives of my beloveds- children, old friends, sisters and cousins.   Still sad to leave my New Mexico friends, and that fabulous landscape and culture -but I can visit.  It won’t be the same- I will be the outsider visiting.  I won’t get the current joke about someone or the reference to a recent happening in town- but it is a fair exchange I think.  As Christmas approaches and we hunker down again with Covid lurking, I am grateful to be with a pod I call my own, and when the grayness starts to wear on me I switch on my SAD light and Bobby McFerrin and fill the bird feeder.