Monday Bill went back to work, and I resumed my online work of text editing. Almost immediately I felt that vacation is over and life is back to normal. I can’t seem to shake that conclusion, which both reasoning and sensory inputs belie. I haven’t even tried all the appliances in the condo, yet my routine feels perfectly natural. Are we such creatures of habit that we default to it? Perhaps it helps us survive and thrive by reducing stress and uncertainty. Feeling “at home” is calming.

Although I seem to be settling in here, there are many superficial differences. There are more hummingbirds here, and more snails–we haven’t spotted a banana slug. The Toyota dealer is open for service appointments seven days a week. The drivers are very polite and not in a rush. Alcohol is sold everywhere, including in CVS. The yards are more likely to sport spiky plants and fruit trees, the air is drier, and there is a constant breeze, possibly due to our proximity to the ocean. Right now the weather is cooler, and there is fog in the morning. We also see surfers of all ages all over the place, since we live within walking distance of 3 well-known surfing spots. Tri-tip is a common food, and not knowing what it is a sure sign you aren’t from here.

Unsurprisingly, we picked an area similar to Brookline. The neighborhood residents are educated, working people, many with kids and dogs, and the neighborhood is quiet during the day–even sirens are rare. Nearby restaurants offer great variety and good quality. The national brand names are here–I can still shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s–and there are also lots of quirky local places to check out. There are many pedestrians.

The thing I miss most, besides my friends, is a library within walking distance. The thing that throws me off the most is the time difference;  I feel like you are all going to bed really early.

Unpacking is both like and unlike the present-receiving portion of Christmas. There is a lot of unwrapping, and associated litter. In truth, one could say about every item, I’ve already got one of these. But often one says instead, I’m so relieved to find this! or, I’d forgotten we had that, or, Why did I ship these across the country? So there is an element of surprise, and also of uncertainty as to whether each “gift” will bring joy, resignation, relief, or remorse.

We are also doing more shopping than we would like to do, just as at Christmas. In that case, one is often thinking, Is this advancing the meaning of Christmas, or obscuring it? In this case, one is often thinking, Did we really just downsize so we could upsize again? Both feel like effort at cross-purposes.

Since we moved such a long distance, we have a lot of Look-at-that reactions because the houses, the flora and fauna, and the landscape are different. That also happens during the Christmas season, when both homes and businesses decorate. (I know you are not all Christmas-celebrators, but let’s face it, despite what you may have heard about a war on Christmas, it trumps every other holiday in terms of visual displays. Halloween is second.)

I have to do a bit of reaching to connect to the spiritual side of Christmas. We are grateful for our safe trip across; for our wonderful buyers, with whom we hope to continue a relationship; for our dear friends who made time to see us before we left, and especially those who provided temporary housing;  for our California realtor who supported us through the buy and the period of non-occupancy, and who continues to be a resource now; and for the support of our families, especially our children, in fulfilling this dream. We frequently walk by the ocean and find ourselves staring silently at it, listening to the wind and the waves, observing others doing the same. The Pacific is impossible to ignore for long, and inspires thoughts of the eternal effortlessly.

So there’s an extended metaphor, maybe overextended.

We entered California at 11:20 am on September 6, along with quite a few dust-covered cars returning from Burning Man, and got to Santa Cruz county approximately 24 hours later, after a sleepover in San Francisco and a detour through back roads due to Route 1 construction. This blog is about the previous 2 long driving days.

We were expecting to finally see mountains in Oregon, and I-80 did reach its maximum elevation of 8640 feet shortly after we entered that state. We stayed in Laramie, closer to 7100, with racing hearts and trouble breathing all night. The altitude sickness quickly subsided, however, because I-80 is at  lower elevations in the rest of the state, including both times it crosses the Continental Divide. And why not? In Wyoming, it follows the path of the Oregon Trail, and in Utah and Nebraska, the path of one of the California Trails.

The highway is relatively flat because those trails were relatively flat. Flying along at 80+ mph, we could not but think of these hearty souls with all their worldly goods in a wagon, “racing” along at 10-20 miles per day to get from Missouri to California before winter set in. Rivers were their rest stops, providing water, firewood, and grass, and the wagon was their off-road vehicle. Since it had to be dismantled and raised or lowered by ropes over the steeper slopes, these travelers were definitely optimizing for the gentler grades, which we appreciated 150 years later.

The “trail” was still flat but pretty much water-free in Utah and Nevada, one of the California Trails. At the time considered the most grueling trail, the California Trail was nicknamed “The Elephant” because it could not be described adequately, but had to be personally experienced to be comprehended. After seemingly endless deserts, the entry into California is dramatic: the dark green firs of the Teton forest cling to mountainsides, and vehicles crest at Donner Summit before traversing a twisty, 40-mile downhill run with a 5% grade.

Although we didn’t stop for anything, I hear one can still see vestiges of the westward migration, including wagon tracks. I’m not happy about how European-Americans supplanted native humans in North America, but I can only be impressed by these travelers who did so much with so little, whose paths we still follow.

Last night and tonight we stayed in Laramie, Wyoming and Winnemucca, Nevada, but tonight I am blogging about Iowa and Nebraska.

Collections of enormous windmills have been cropping up frequently since we crossed the Mississippi. In the very first one we saw driving west from Des Moines, the numerous 3-pronged turbines extended along the highway through a 10-minute drive and as far as I could see on either side, and were arranged in irregular groupings of 2 or 3, or 4 or 5, each group with different internal positioning, as though they were socializing at a cocktail party. The desultory and varying paces of their spinning underscored the impression of leisure, rather than the work of generating power.  The wide spacing between groupings, combined with the rolling hills of Iowa, gave the pleasant effect of an organic shape, like flowing water or the branches of trees. I surmised the arrangement was dictated by patterns of wind flow. However, all subsequent wind farms were grouped in a rectilinear manner, ranging from scattered short segments to soldierly arrays, so I discarded that theory.

As you will know if you have viewed the factory farm map (www.factoryfarmmap.org), Iowa and Nebraska are home to many large CAFOs, and I had hoped to see one, though I expected it to be an unpleasant experience, based on a description by an eye-witness I met at a party last December. Along Interstate 80 in both states, however, we saw nary a one. A few times we smelled a trace of ordure which persisted for a minute or two as we sped along, and we wondered at its source. Instead of CAFOs, we saw multiple herds of 20 to 100 relaxed, glossy, black cows grazing at will over spacious, enticing fields, some lolling in the grass, not a rancher in sight, and with fences spaced so widely as to be unnoticeable. We saw no other farm animals, and no factory farm lots or buildings of any size. An observer would deduce that Midwest beef is exclusively grass-fed. My theory is that these states have purposefully populated the highly-trafficked routes with tourist-friendly farm images, yet I doubt myself; that explanation implies such a high level of collusion among so many entities.

Theorizing is clearly not my forte.

Finally our trip starts in earnest! We have driven through 8 states in 2 days so far, stopping in Ashtabula, Ohio the first night and in Des Moines, Iowa the second. The first leg of the trip I would characterize as Familiar, because after living for 35 years in Massachusetts, wooded, hilly terrain is familiar to me. The second leg we are calling Flat, and although Iowa was a little more rolling than we expected, this leg continues through Nebraska. The Flat region features unfamiliar items including posted Interstate speeds of 70 mph,  100-foot-tall cell towers not even pretending to be trees, mushroom-shaped municipal water tanks, staggeringly enormous warehouses, triple-tandem trucks, and wide-distance views that include lots of sky.

Driving 10+ hours a day starts out well but later gets hard. It’s something that happens, and while it is happening we aren’t sure if we can really do it, but then we do. Every time we get out of the car we hobble, at least for a short time. We have 3 more days, and are waiting to see if this gets more challenging or easier.

Road food is horrible, a true Hobson’s choice.

One might guess that Internet apps could guide us the entire way, but one might not have reckoned on one’s children. We quickly discovered that we had a dearth of mobile data and initially asked both boys to shut down. That enabled navigation, but in order to add Spotify, we had to modify our Verizon contract, which is easily done while cruising down the highway, and ideally not irreversible.

We’re in the middle of the Midwest now, and although we have relatives, friends, and childhoods in the red states, we find ourselves influenced by the US zeitgeist. Is the friendly fellow at the next table carrying a gun?  Does the gal behind the cash register think non-Christians will burn eternally? Would the hotel clerk treat us differently if we weren’t white and heterosexual? We aren’t paranoid about it, but we wonder.

We had a yummy, Paula-Deen-style meal at a friendly, pleasant local restaurant tonight. Compared to it, folk dancing looks like the United Nations.

Why did we hang around Massachusetts for three weeks after selling our house? To attend Pinewoods Camp, and here we are. We hadn’t been to a Pinewoods session longer than a weekend since I was pregnant with our now 24-year-old son, and being here feels like seeing an old friend again after a long absence.

My husband and I met at a contra dance at the Concord Scout House, and have been enthusiastic members of the folk community for most of our adult lives. People in this community are connected by a set of beliefs that they hold open-heartedly and publicly: a profound opposition to war; faith in the fundamental humanity of every individual; and an irrepressible optimism about being alive. They are friendly, involved, willing to try new stuff in public, sharers, willing to act silly, supportive, willing to pitch in, nostalgic, willing to express sentiment, kind, and fun. They aren’t sappy, though: their wit is sardonic, drinking happens, a lot of the songs are bawdy, and night swimming is suit-optional.

Though we dabble in other traditions, our particular folk community is primary focused on English, Canadian, and American folk traditions brought from Europe or evolved from music brought from Europe. The Old Country–mostly England, Scotland, and Ireland–dominates, with Appalachian, bluegrass, Cajun, and Anglo- and French-Canadian close behind, including songs from every historic era in both North America and the regions that now comprise the UK.

That is to say, this great group of people is mostly white. Not all, but primarily, and more so than any other group in which we are involved–my husband’s work colleagues, our (Brookline) neighborhood, our kids’ public school students and staff, my extended family. There’s nothing wrong with being white, but this level of whiteness feels strikingly odd in 2016. For the most part, it seems that people of color just aren’t drawn to square dancing, or Morris dancing, or English drinking songs, or songs of Atlantic Canada, or Bothy ballads, or Appalachian clog dancing.

We have wide representation among people of all ages, the LGBT community, the differently abled, citizens of red, blue, and purple states, non-English speakers, and most of the white religions. But we do not have racial diversity. This is painful and mysterious to many of us.

Focus is how humans get things done. It’s imperative to success whether you are practicing an instrument, preparing a souffle, or planning a major team project. My husband and I have been focusing on our goal of moving to California for two years, and recently on the sub-goals of downsizing, packing, and planning the road trip. This focus has brought us within 2 weeks of that move with only a few minor glitches.

Distractibility is also a desirable human trait. It allows us to change our destination from the grocery to the lake when the weather is distractingly gorgeous, stop and watch the parade we hadn’t expected, or take a walk with a friend we run into while headed elsewhere. It also allows us to modify our focus on longer-term projects. Too much focus on planning the Thanksgiving dinner for 15 while ignoring the distraction of your whiny daughter could lead to disaster when she ends up confined at home with a communicable disease the day all the elderly relatives arrive.

With 7 days and counting until the drive to California, my husband and I found ourselves in Brookline on Saturday for only 4 hours, with a list of last-minute chores. Our older son, who was starting a job in Baltimore on Monday, was in town, so we took him to lunch, with lots of discussion items related to his transition on the agenda. He mentioned that his car had been giving him some trouble, that he had noticed an oil leak, and that he had bought a case of oil and was adding it periodically during the drive from Maryland to Massachusetts. We told him he should get that fixed as soon as he got back to Baltimore.

Why did we give him such bad advice? We are both well aware of dangers of driving a car that leaks oil. I surmise that we were so focused on other, immediate goals that we did not let the distraction of this car news derail us. We had to be at camp that night, he had to be home Sunday night, after that the car could be dealt with.

As you will have guessed, the motor seized up in Connecticut. Our single-minded focus has already cost us plenty of money, but we feel lucky considering the more serious consequences that could have resulted from our failure to adjust. Luckily, our son and all the others on the road with him at the time were unscathed.

The next time your partner asks you to skip the exercise routine and linger in bed on a weekend morning, give serious consideration to practicing distractibility. It could come in handy.

All our worldly goods, are, as in turns out, quantifiable. There was an initial shipment of 70 cubic feet of mostly-books, which as of yesterday is in the garage of our new condo. There was the major shipment, 680 cubic feet of every-sort-of-thing, which, after our re-assertion of its being free of gypsy moths, was admitted into the Golden State and is now residing in a warehouse. Another 50 cubic feet of didn’t-quite-fit is resting on this coast pending shipment. Tomorrow we expect the 73 cubic feet of cargo space in our Rav4 will be packed to the brim with clothing and instruments.

Most people feel instinctively that materialism is the opposite of spirituality, and that worldly goods in excess are pejorative. However much anyone personally considers excessive, when disaster strikes, we all prefer losing our possessions to losing a family member, a friend, or even a beloved pet. After all, things can be replaced.

Since there is a real, though small, chance that after their journey all of our worldly goods have been shattered, I started to think about irreplaceable items. Tchotchkes my late father owned, that caught his eye, are precious to me, as are his writings and photographs of him. Books and toys that my sons cherished when they were small are meaningful because I remember the attachment, though they do not. Furniture and housewares handed down over the generations are reminders of our family’s long history in this country, and a chance to handle items my forebears also touched.

Most of the value of these items is inside my head, rather than intrinsic to the items themselves. If I don’t share the stories of an item, it will mean nothing after I am gone, even to people close to me. If I do share its stories, the meaning could survive even if the item doesn’t.

On the other hand, while packing, I found items I had forgotten, which triggered memories. Losing an item could therefore correspond to losing a memory, or at least making it less likely to surface. This could be useful: if you want to forget something, discard the evidence.

***Note to followers: I will be off-grid at camp next week so probably will not post again until Sept. 2. ***

When you are moving to Santa Cruz from Boston, banana slugs come up a lot, so I decided to research them. The Pacific banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus, can grow to over 9″ long and is found on the Pacific coast from Alaska to California. It has a symbiotic relationship with redwoods, refusing to eat their seeds while consuming those of redwood competitors. By shape and color, it reminds humans of one of our favorite fruits. It is also the mascot of UC Santa Cruz. No wonder a friend at the Armory Pub Sing chose a “Banana Slug” song as a sendoff for us.

Meanwhile, as a nomadic person, I’ve been spending time in public libraries. The main libraries in both Brookline and Lexington, my main daytime locations last week and this week, are massive stone buildings with both grace and gravitas, packed with useful resources, helpful staff, excellent Wifi, and quiet working nooks. There are also books. I sought a book to take to camp next week, and while it was not available in Lexington, the librarian found it at the Bedford library. With its portico of columns topped by a pediment, that library may have the grandest structure of the three, and certainly was comparable in every other respect.

Having this 3-for-3 experience of libraries in such a short time period led me to research that topic, and I found that public libraries (as opposed to research libraries or subscription libraries) are indigenous to Massachusetts in North America. That is to say, the public library is to Massachusetts as the banana slug is to California. It tends to be larger here than elsewhere, has a symbiotic relationship with the community, and is visually appealing.

I feel confident that many Massachusettsians would be comfortable with the library as a symbol, because it speaks to a people both knowledgeable and knowledge-seeking. I suspect many Californians might be comfortable with the banana slug as a symbol–it protects the environment and is strikingly styled–but I still have a lot of research to do in the field before reaching a conclusion.

My husband and I are classical music fans. We never tire of complex, emotionally powerful music that often has a compelling creation story, is performed by artists of extreme talent honed by extreme diligence, and is reliably  pitch-perfect. At Tanglewood, world-class music performance and instruction in indoor-outdoor venues of striking natural beauty combine with quirky customs and a history of pragmatism trumping ostentation, both New England hallmarks. Much more than a place, Tanglewood is a collection of people and their stories, stretching to even before it was a music destination*

The first time we visited Tanglewood was in 1993. We felt like we hit the jackpot in 2014, when our younger son joined the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. TFC has a generous program of family member support and we have taken advantage of it, including last weekend, when we attended 3 shows (our personal best to date is 13 shows in 9 days). We find it is always a treat,  often with a surprise in store. This past week, a black bear disrupted the orchestra rehearsal**, a 93-year-old piano soloist gave an encore, 17 married couples participated in a single concert, and there was a Tanglewood premier of a BSO-commissioned work (that was world-premiered in Boston in February). Superlatives are standard fare there.

We love Tanglewood so much that we simply cannot say goodbye to it, just au revoir: We will return. Our feelings are exactly the same, except much stronger, for the dear friends we are leaving behind. We will miss you so much, we will stay in touch, we will return to visit. We hope you will visit us. This move is a right decision for us and for our marriage, but it is also wrenching.  However anxious to leave we may seem, please know that you are valued, esteemed, treasured, admired, and loved, and will be missed more than you know, for your uniqueness, your accomplishments, your surprises, your superlatives.

*see Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

**bear at Tanglewood: