An International Move and 11 Boxes of Books (Two of Which Were Shipped Across the Pond)

I both love and hate moving. OK, love is a strong word, but in the absence of another way to express the excitement of anticipating a new life, I'll stick with love. But I hate it, because I stink at it. No other way to say that.

We've moved again. You'd think, after moving around a couple times, that I'd get used to it, or be better prepared for the emotions that come along with it. But I'm not. I know enough to expect the turmoil, but not enough to embrace it or push through it in any sort of a logical fashion.

We've moved home, back to the United States. I'm so thankful to be here, but it's complicated . . . more complicated than I usually admit. Twice we've moved to places completely out of our element, and twice we've moved it back to the desert when the time came to carry on (graduation will do that, you know). I'm always grateful to move home, to the familiar and to our families, because I love them tons (ummm, sisters!) -- but I'm also prone to feeling a little down once the job is done and we're halfway settled in (which is where we're at now). I miss the adventure -- the excitement of new places, of learning the rhythm of a new city, of finding my way in the unfamiliar (as long as I'm walking or riding and not driving, thank you very much). I still miss Chicago, and now I add Oxford to the list.

It hurts. It aches. I'm not sure when we're gonna be back to England. Darn airfare at a thousand bucks a pop virtually guarantees that it'll be several years, if not a decade or more. Did we live it up? Did we appreciate everything we experienced? I hope so. We tried.

I regret not going to Cornwall ("Doc Martin," I'm blaming you). But I'm thankful for every time I caught the train to Bath and for every family trip to London (even the really cold one when we couldn't hail a cab back to Paddington Station and ended up walking for miles along the Thames with cranky kids, hoping that we'd have better luck by Westminster Abbey. For the record, we didn't.)

I think settling in a bit will help. I still have more boxes than I want admit left to unpack.

So, yeah, you know you might be in denial when you pull items out of boxes, use them, and then return them right back to the box . . . .

That might be what I've been doing with my books.

Perhaps it's time to anchor the bookshelf to the wall (I'm a bit paranoid like that), unpack the boxes, and settle in.

Home, in time, will come. That's what I keep telling myself. And my books will help.

City Pop

I never knew I was a city girl until I moved to Chicago -- Hyde Park, South Side, to be exact. 2002.

I loved the bite, the flavor of the city; it was a sort of watch-your-back deep-dish pepperoni-pizza-pie existence. I remember lying snug in bed, the window just behind my head open, the cool air and the sounds of the city drifting in as I drifted out.

Chicago will always be home to our family; our oldest girl took her first steps on ancient vinyl tile up on the ninth floor. On a clear day, we could watch sailboats on Lake Michigan, and hear trains speed by on the way to the Loop. We ran errands on foot, freezing our buns off in the winter, and soaking in the sunshine of spring. Chicago was ours.

My heart ached when it was time to move on; three years sped by. But before we left the city, I found a book at the Chicago Public Library that perfectly captured the vibrance, the rhythm, the cacophony of city life.

The book: "Listen to the City" by Rachel Isadora. City sounds, scenes, and pop art to boot. A perfect read for city kids (and those who wish they were).