change

If yesterday was miserably cold, today was still somewhat cold, but beautiful nonetheless. Blue skies and a warm sun meant that I could leave the scarf behind. At last.

And this is a good thing, because today, I launched my (protracted) move to the farmette. Ed brought his truck (you surely have dead mice in the engine! It smells to high heaven! Open the window...) and we loaded up all that I store in the storage room in the basement of my condo building: Christmas decorations. Important papers and less used kitchen utensils. Skates, picture frames, a picnic basket. A guitar.

We roll slowly toward the farmette, thinking that a bump at a faster pace would surely send things flying. At the farmette, we unload the truck, carry it all to the basement and I check off on my list one room (admittedly the smallest) as “moved in.”

And the willows sway and the birds chirp and life is good.





But it is cold. At the farmette, the ground is still solidly frozen, so that my attempts at leveling the dirt driveway are completely unproductive.

I leave in the early afternoon, having work to do at home.

But I move slowly on the return trip home. I spot the truck farmers out in the field next to the farmette and I pause for a while. I feel neighborly almost. As if I’d already moved in.





And a few paces further, I come across a man with a camera. What are you looking for – I ask.
Birds that stay at the water’s edge.





That water is really not a pond, but one big puddle in the fields below. Sometimes it dries up during the summer. Other times it does not.

In the evening, I chat with my mother (who lives in Berkeley). She’s skeptical about my move. I’m not. I’m sure as anything that I am doing the right thing.