change is in the air

So here I am on an airplane moving to Boulder. Could have been a smoother transition, but I’m here. (It’s a long story.) Already people look different. Fit. Tan. They carry books about hiking and have carabineers on their backpacks.

It’s hard to say good-bye to Minneapolis. In two years I’ve met neighbors, friends and fellow mothers who have become very important to me, and to my children. I found a job I adore and I built a garden that made me proud. We had neighbors who gathered many evenings in our front yard to hang out, have a beer and watch our kids ride trikes up and down the sidewalk. I’m not saying I can’t recreate these things in Boulder, in fact I’m sure I will, but it’s terribly sad to leave and say good-bye to what I knew there and what could have been there if I’d given it more chance to grow. I could have been happy in Minneapolis. The summers were way too short, but the winters were manageable. And the parks, lakes, and trails made a pretty nice environment. It was a good place for our twin funny bunnies. But it was not a good place for funnydad, and in the end we’re a unit, and so we move on together.

The night before I left my neighbor – former neighbor – Doda, told me she’d had a dream about me: When she was a little girl on a farm in outstate Minnesota her grandmother sometimes had friends visit to quilt. When the women would gather for these quilting sessions, a young Doda would look at the quilts and see that each woman’s squares had a distinct pattern and style. In her dream, Doda tells me that Minneapolis and Oliver Avenue were a square on the quilt of my life. This square would have a unique pattern, and stand alone in my memory, but now it’s time to move on to the next square. And, she said, the quilt would keep me warm in the winter and be pretty to look at in the summer. Doda has been a lovely neighbor, and this dream a warm parting gift.