“This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain…” – Paul Simon

About four years ago, we suddenly had the completely unexpected opportunity to move to California. We jumped on it. We listed our house in Florida, and within six weeks we had purchased a house over the internet in southern California, someone had purchased *our* Florida house over the internet from us, and Grace and I were on a plane to LAX and Tom was driving cross country with the pets.

It’s been extraordinary, to say the least. I got my life back. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it’s actually an understatement. I feel like someone hit the “pause” button on me the day I moved to Florida after graduate school and then set me back in motion the moment I stepped off the plane in California.

The first year here was all about getting settled and being delighted by everything, even in mostly lockdown from C0v1d, finding magic in the seasons and all the wildlife that passes through our tiny postage-stamp suburban yard. At any given moment, there’s more birds, squirrels, ducks, rabbits, and other little creatures in our yard than I think I saw in my entire time living in Southwest Florida, which is saying a lot.

This particular area in California is a place where the natural world matters- even in the most developed areas in our county, natural life is all over the place. This is a place where a local city buys an asphalt factory to shut it down, knock it down, and turn it into another park. This is a space where mama ducks bring their ducklings into your yard and settle down for months with them, raising them inches from your back door, totally comfortable with the arrangement because they know you are going to help out and not cause any issues.

This is also a place where a giant swarm of feral bees the size of a cloud flies over your roof, down into you yard, and within the span of a few minutes, takes completely over empty squirrel nesting boxes and have to be rescued by the local beekeeper. That was pretty surreal, I must admit- watching that. And it’s happen a few times.

Life has changed so much. I still am trying to figure out what is what. I feel like I have moved to a new planet and I’m still figuring out how to navigate everything. Now the thing for me is learning how to live again without all the crushing obligations and depression and anxiety of the things I dealt with in Florida.I’m writing again as I find my way, to help me find my way. However, that process feels kind of tender, so I’m keeping it hosted on another WordPress installation. When we moved here I didn’t want **anyone** to know we had moved and it’s just recently that I have felt like talking about it. I think it really felt like it was too good to be true for a long time. It’s not very often that life-long dreams come true and then turn out to be more amazing that you think they will be.

Also, Grace is going to turn 19 in a few months, and while I never blogged a lot about her life, now that she is really an adult, I definitely feel like I need to respect her 100000%, and even the smallest details- her major in college, her life, her interests, her career plans, etc.- belong to her and her alone.

I can see from the web hosting panel that no one visits here anymore, so this may be a pointless exercise, but if you’d like to read my current online journal, you can contact me for information. I’ll be honest- I’m not familiar with a lot of email addresses and so the best way to contact me is through Instagram Direct Message– I can remember icons and nicknames on there better than recognizing email addresses. If you don’t have Instagram, that’s fine- just send me a message and if it feels right, I’d be happy to share the URL with you.

Again, not being a gatekeeper, just trying to respect the other people in my life, and trying to create a space for myself where I feel totally comfortable sharing what’s in my heart and head, without feeling like I have to “compose” it to fit the new attention economy. I haven’t felt like that about writing online since the days before social media and comments and “blogs” and by writing honestly in an anonymous space with no comments enabled, I feel like I am returning to the roots of what it means to keep an online longform journal.

If you come upon this, I hope you are truly truly well.