fishel in the fountain

Here he goes!

rain, rain

I wonder, if Greg Fishel is so crazy about snow, why he doesn't move to a market where it snows a lot. Like Denver. Or Buffalo. Perhaps it wouldn't be exciting if snow were commonplace. Actually, I know that is true. I grew up in Connecticut, where snow is a pretty routine wintertime thing. My parents are here visiting from there right now, helping us move, and they were openly laughing at the local TV news last night, because the weatherman was breathless with excitement about the possibility of "up to an inch" of snow.
Instead, it rained and rained. A small lake formed in our back yard, which it always does in heavy rain. Unfortunately, this was the day for the inspector to come to make sure there were no major problems with the house that could kill our sale. On the bright side, now the buyer can be confident that the roof doesn't leak.
I wonder how I will readapt to cold weather. I really disliked it as a child in rural Connecticut, until I took up cross-country skiing as a teenager, and then I learned to love winter. That is something I still miss. It's so perfectly still and silent in the snowy winter woods, so beautiful! It's cold out, but the exertion of skiing keeps you warm. I have not been cross-country skiing in years. Maybe now I will have a chance again.
It sounds silly, but I don't ever remember noticing the cold weather that much when I lived in New York as a student. There was too much else going on. The cold winter wind off the Hudson when I turned west from Broadway to 110th Street where I lived -- that I do remember.
I feel for Robin. I would hate to have to send my husband off alone on a cross-country drive to a strange place. That is the sort of thing you should do together, like pioneers setting off in a covered wagon.

alone again, naturally

I know what Kathleen means, about not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone. It’s a classic North Carolina winter day – 42 degrees and raining. If this were snow, we’d be in trouble. Unfortunately, this comes off a mostly warm winter (excepting a few weeks of bitter, nose-freezing cold). When I’ve mostly gotten used to sun and springlike temperatures, this weather stinks.
Fishel, our local TV weather geek, swore that by noon this stuff would be tapering off to a slight drizzle. Well, friends, it’s 12:11 by my computer and it’s only getting wetter and wetter. Looks like Fishel’s jumping into the fountain tonight.
Jumping into the fountain is Fishel’s shtick. When he makes a weather-related promise that he’s sure he can keep, he says that if it doesn’t come true, he’ll jump into the fountain in front of the TV station. Usually these promises have to do with snow; he’s a snow lover, and he roots openly for snow on the news. He swore that if we didn’t have significant snow or ice accumulation by the end of Feb. 28, he would jump into the fountain. So, it looks like he’s going in.
This is so goofy, the thought of a grown man jumping around in the freezing cold water in his suit and tie, all because of a very public promise he made. It’s the kind of thing that happens here. People keep their promises, or else. Does that happen in Denver? I’m sure nobody promises to jump in fountains – too cold.

I hope they post footage of Fishel in the Fountain on the Web site, so Steve can see it. He left yesterday morning amid open weeping from all of us. As much as I want to stay until the end of the school year, I don’t think we’ll make it. It’s a distraught house. The girls are doing the best they can, trying to be resilient, and probably doing a better job at it than I am. Steve’s got it bad too – he watched the Oscars last night. He hates the Oscars; he knows I love the Oscars. His first day of work is tomorrow. I hope he likes it. No: I hope he loves it.
The kids’ pediatrician brought up the point that if they start school soon in Denver, they might make friends they can play with over the summer, and it will make the adjustment easier. I hadn’t thought of that. As much as it pains me to say goodbye here, I don’t think our family can handle a prolonged separation.
Besides, I can always visit Fishel online.

years of memories

Yesterday I went through some of the millions of things that need to be sorted through, taken to Brooklyn or given or thrown away. (I seem to have been doing this forever and feel like I am making no progress.) I found a page on which I had written, about two years ago, 25 things I wanted to do before I died. One of them was "live in Brooklyn." Hmm. The others seemed quite unlikely, but I saved that piece of paper anyway. You never know.
Then I found a large envelope labled "letters from the early 90s." Why did I save these? I wondered. But then I started reading them and was riveted. Some of my friends could really write! They were wrestling with very large questions, and seemed to have time to explore them at length in prose. I couldn't help thinking as I read them that we all seemed to be more interesting people then, in our early and mid-20s. The big issues in life were still up for grabs: where to live, whether to choose the dull job with the potential to make lots of money or the interesting but badly paid thing. And men. Lots of discussions about relationships, what we wanted from them, who we were, really. These people are married now with children and real jobs, most of them, normal lives. It's just another stage of life; you can't be adrift and living on potential forever; at some point you have to decide, to move forward in some direction. It's natural to become more settled and boring.
But perhaps the letters touched me because I again feel like this. My life had been so incredibly settled: my my OK job, little house, my little life. Now everything has cracked open; everything seems possible again, anything might happen, both good and bad. It's both scary and exciting. But it is not boring.
At some moments if I could just wave a magic wand and undo the events of the recent months I would do it in an instant. I think, I am not brave enough, I am not interesting enough, I can't handle all this. But, obviously, no such magic wand exists, so there is no choice but to go forward and hope you can somehow be equal to it.

guilt and goodbyes

I wonder whether all parents fear that they will turn into their own parents and inflict the same kind of suffering on their children that their parents inflicted on them. (That I think these sorts of thoughts may explain why I don't have children.) Certainly Robin's last posting expresses that. Her yearning for the lost innocence of her beach childhood --never mind that it might not have been so great if she had stayed there --was the defining tragedy of her childhood, if I am not being too dramatic. Will this be replayed in her daughters' lives? Will they adapt to life in Colorado?
I hope so. Maybe they will like it. Who knows? It will change their young lives in ways we can't imagine, and they have aboslutely no say in it. Who knows? Maybe it will all be all right.
With absolutely no good reason for it, I feel more optimistic this morning. Through weeping over wisteria. Goodbye to scrubby pine trees and red clay and decaying tobacco barns covered with kudzu. It's been great , but it's time to move on.
I had my last day at work yesterday. Such a strange feeling, after nearly 11 years in the same place. So much has happened, so many people that I knew and loved, or knew and was annoyed by. Work seems so much like a family, like it will just go on forever, everyone slowly getting older and more adjusted to one another's quirks. It seems like it will go on forever -- until one day it doesn't. You're done. You clean out your desk, you imagine the place going on without you, and it's like a vision of your own death.

litany of worries

I find that I’m having a similar experience leaving Raleigh. North Carolina has been my home for all my life, and the Raleigh area for 23 years of it. My childhood was spent on North Carolina’s beaches, shunning sunscreen (which I will no doubt pay for any second now) and living a meager but exuberant existence. I swam all the time; I spent Christmas in shorts and T-shirts; I roller-skated and rode my bike and made forts in the tick-infested woods, without a care in the world. It was Heaven on Earth.
Then, we moved to Raleigh. I was ten years old. We had one tree worth climbing, and my parents had it removed shortly after we got settled. We had malls, and we had strip shopping centers; and we had kids who didn’t welcome newcomers, especially straight-A students who didn’t have (and couldn’t really afford) Jordache jeans and Vans. I cried every night until I was about fourteen. All I wanted was to leave this place.
After a while – I guess it happened when my first child was born – I learned to love the beast. Steve liked it here. He had had opportunities to move, and in fact he had lived all over the world, but he had decided to settle here. And it’s not bad. The winters aren’t too cold. The summers are awful and humid, but I’m told it’s worse in Texas. You can afford to buy a house here (and, as Kathleen can attest, it’s comparatively trouble-free) and the schools are good. And there’s plenty of shopping, although we are still IKEA-less, which chaps my hide.
Now that I’m finally outta here – a feat considering that most of the people I knew in high school are still here – I’m terribly sad. It’s not the place. I hate scrubby pine trees, I’ve seen my fill of azaleas; and, also unlike Kathleen, I’ve shed no tears for wisteria. But all the people I love are here (and, shortly, also in NYC). My mom and dad and sister still live in the same Raleigh suburb, about two miles from that house with the controversial tree. My grandparents still live about an hour away. Many of my cousins, people I grew up with, are still here. And, of course, I eventually did make friends, great ones, and every time I have to say goodbye to them now I feel like I’m cutting off fingers.

My greatest worry is for my children. I have two school-age daughters and a toddler son. He’ll be fine; he’s still far too young for any of this to make much of an impression. But I’m deeply worried about my daughters.
My oldest turns seven in three short weeks. She has great friends and a little hand-holding boyfriend who’s alarmingly sweet and looks out for her best interests. She loves her teacher. She loves her school and wears her school T-shirt with an ear-to-ear grin. In short, her attachments to the place are deep, and now I have to break them and pray I don't destroy her giddy good cheer.
My younger daughter, who is in kindergarten, looks out for others before she does herself. She fixes her sister’s boo-boos (and vice-versa), and she pulls her own loose teeth. She cries when something sad happens during a movie. She makes presents for her friends, and every person in her class is a friend. At Valentine’s Day, everyone else got the typical little cards except my daughter – she got a box of chocolates, a teddy bear, special Hallmark cards, and more bags of candy than I could count. I’m still finding little bags all over the house. Is it fair for me to take her out of such a neat class, such a positive experience?
I don’t know that we can afford to stay the rest of the school year -- to maintain two residences, two sets of bills. And it’s going to be tough being without Steve; we’re going to miss him, and I’m worried about his emotional health. He’s a homebody. He cocoons. He doesn’t like being on his own. But if we leave, just get out of here, is that fair to the kids? What would (insert your favorite advice maven) do?

a moving experience

Robin exaggerates both her own disarray and my coolness. I think we are friends because underneath we are so similar; in our sense of humor and way of looking at the world and love of literature and art. Except that Robin is much, much smarter. She has to be to hold all this stuff together. And a better person. Unselfish to a fault, where I am the opposite.
But this not what I set out to write about. Yes, my move is far easier than Robin's. My company is paying to move us; it paid for a broker to help us find an apartment in New York (Note to people thinking it might be fun to move to New York: A renter looking for an apartment typically pays a feeof 12 percent to 15 percent of the first YEAR'S rent to the broker. And since monthly rent for even a tiny apartment in Manhattan is in the $1700 to $2000 range, that's a whole lot of money. And don't even get me started on all the documents you have to produce to prove you are fiscally OK... It was easier to buy a house in Raleigh.) But moving is not painless, however you do it. I feel as if my life is being upended, ripped down to the foundations, and everything I believed about myself being called into question.
I have lived in North Carolina(Raleigh and Chapel Hill) for 14 years, all the time grumbling about the boring architecture and lack of cultural life and the humidity and the blandness and the shopping malls. I went to school in New York and left because I could not figure out a way not to be desperately poor there. I always told myself that New York was my real home and that if I could ever figure out a way to earn a decent living there, I would move back at once. Now it has happened, and I am looking around in disbelief. Must I really leave all this beauty? My beautiful 1920s stone cottage, where we have been so happy? The yard where my dog loves to hang out? The redbud is out; I will not see redbud again, we don't have it up north. Nor azealas, magnolia, wisteria. Oh, god, wisteria. Am I really crying for wisteria? Is this what it comes down to? Or is it only the symbol of something else, of not appreciating what you have until it is already disappearing?

where barney goes to party

On the surface, I suppose there couldn’t be two more different friends. Where Kathleen is cool and sophisticated, I’m a mass of frayed edges and flakiness. Kathleen’s hair is short and neat; mine is a shaggy mess, down my back, in my eyes, everywhere. Kathleen carries her Kenneth Cole bag with style and panache; I dart in and out of coffee shops with my handmade Guatemalan sack bulging by my side. And I wish I could bring the serenity of Kathleen’s home and force it on my three rough-and-tumble children, my writing career, the business my husband and I own, the constant ringing of the phone.
Soon my husband will leave to start his new job in the Mile High City. Kathleen will leave for the Big Apple, and I’ll be stuck here in the city where Barney goes to party.

This month has been horrible. We are making our move because my husband lost his job – the job that supports our family, our personal business (which doesn’t actually make any money), everything. The folks in Denver called him and the rest, as they say, is history. Kathleen’s is different – her move centers around an amazing job opportunity that she would have been a fool not to take. Her house is all but sold; she has a place to live in NYC. But still, it’s moving. And all of it is overwhelming. I can’t believe Kathleen is going through many of the same things, at the same time. If I had to do this on my own, I don’t know how I’d ever get through it.

why mile high apple?

Robin is one of my favorite people in the world, and we've been friends for many years, nearly all the years I have lived in North Carolina. Suddenly, at the start of 2005, we're going to be far apart: She is moving to Denver, and I'm moving to New York. (And I thought Smithfield was a long way from Raleigh!) Mile high apple is how we intend to keep in touch, and to keep writing, our response to the searing pain of saying goodbye. We also thought it might be fun to compare notes on how life in New York and Denver is different, and how each is different from life in North Carolina. We'll see how that part goes...