July Fly-By

Well. July has come and gone in a flash–even more so than most summer months. Traveling for eleven days had something to do with it. The breathtaking speed with which out life turned upside down and settled into a new pattern had something else, I am certain.

First: vacation. We managed to pull off our Epic Road Trip without leaving anyone behind at any gas stations, losing any cameras or phones, getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, or being attacked by alligators in Florida. How terribly boring.

In Florida, we did get to see a dolphin and a sea turtle swimming off the end of a pier, a submerged alligator in a state park (I confess, I was FREAKING OUT about alligators before we left, and it took all my courage to even walk through this park. I wasn’t going to be a coward for my kids, though, and I saw the alligator and even kept my breakfast down), pelicans flying and swimming along the water, and palm trees and spanish moss. I am more of a northern mountains girl at heart, but Florida was beautiful and fun and I’m glad to have gone.

After Florida, we visited family in Georgia, friends in Tennessee, the Bilmore Estate in North Carolina, and friends in Pennsylvania before wearily making our way back to Massachusetts, heartily tired of the car and the interstate and restaurant food and ready to sleep for a week.

It was a great time, though. Beyond wonderful to see our friends in Nashville and PA again, and the Biltmore Estate was even lovelier than it had been thirteen years ago when Carl and I went there on our honeymoon. I developed a nasty headache partway through the house–heat and dehydration, I figured out afterward–and was afraid I would spoil the day for all of us, but some rest, water, my straw hat, and pain relievers did the trick and I was able to wander through the gardens and grounds after all. Such a beautiful place.

As for the life-turned-upside-down bit … We had started to come to the conclusion that Cambridge was better off waiting a year even before we left for vacation. A whole host of reasons why, and a real sense that we needed a year of rest in between intense graduate school and intense doctoral work. So we started looking for houses to rent locally, or apartments, or shacks, or anything that would allow us to stay at our church and keep up community relationships we have built over the last four years. Nothing that even remotely close to a possibility was coming up. When we left for vacation, we told ourselves we weren’t going to think about it while we were gone, not even look for anything.

That worked up until one of my friends texted me to ask if we’d found a place yet, which innocuous question ended with us being able to rent her house for the next year. We came home Friday evening and visited the house Saturday morning, and what do you know, we have a place to live next year, and it’s here, not in Cambridge.

And we are really, really good with that. Honestly. With as excited as we’ve been for LIVING IN ENGLAND HURRAH, you’d think there would be at least a few disappointed twinges, but we all just feel relieved and so at peace with this. It’s obviously what we need.

Oh! The other exciting July occurrence is that I finally, finally learned to ride a bicycle. I’m still a little wobbly and pitch off more than I like to admit, but I can ride and each time I go out I get a little stronger and a little smoother. I confess to being grateful I have another year to work at it before I have to ride to get everywhere!

So, my friends, it will be another year before this blog is posting out of England, but the adventures, I am sure, will be no less for being in MA for twelve more months. There’s always magic around the corner, you just have to have the eyes to see it.