Missing Minnesota

We've been here long enough that I don't really get lost anymore. The house is unpacked (though not organized. Don't look in our linen closet). We have a regular grocery store, a regular hardware store, an established rhythm to our week. Though I still feel new, the exciting part, the beginning, is over. And loneliness is creeping in.

Building new friendships is the hardest part of moving. I'm keeping in touch with people from our old life (lives) best I can given diverging circumstances, and there are specific people whose absence I feel acutely. That's the thing: I miss specific people, but I also miss just having friends. Heck, I miss having acquaintances. Our neighbors seem nice, and there is even a three-year-old girl two houses away. The people at Quaker Meeting are nice, too. My friend from college who lives here is quite welcoming, but she's busy with her own life and children. I haven't found a play group, or a book group, or a mom's outlet that is satisfying. I've got irons in the fire, mind you -- I've joined moms groups and the local twins groups, am taking classes with the girls where I chat with other parents, things like that. But nothing real is happening yet. I'm finding myself obsessed with absurd small projects: organizing all our screws, nails and hardware. Making halloween costumes without knowing how to sew (hello, glue gun) (elephant for M, bunny for O). Keeping squirrels off our bird feeder. Planning a new shelving system for the girls' closet. This is not to say I don't have larger, more complex projects looming, and of course I spend most of my day making forts in the living room, practicing lowercase letters, counting, reading books and pretending to rescue baby birds from tree limbs. My freelance museum work hasn't started again yet, though it will in a few weeks. While that's good, gives me focus, it's still not a way to have companionship beyond these four walls. So, I've finally decided to call a spade a spade and admit that I'm missing Minnesota.

A friend of my mother's once famously said, "only weeds grow quickly." I'm sure the friends will come, but after 13 years in New York it took me two years to build a handful of solid relationships in Minneapolis -- they're great friends, people I hope to be in touch with when our children are in college. But two years? Is it going to take that long again? If the answer is yes, can I lie to myself and say no? I'm not sure I can bear two years of this.

On a lighter note: We are jumping feet first into the culture. I have a Colorado driver's license and there are Colorado plates on our one of our cars. We're taking a rock climbing class and have a chariot bike trailer for the girls. I pick them up from preschool on my bike, and in a class of thirteen kids (including mine), there are two other parents who regularly do the same thing. I'm already planning my community garden plot for next spring. There are good things happening here, but it turns out that happiness is complex.