IN WHICH I LOVE THE TARGET, PART TWO

I love the Target.

In fact, let's be honest here; I'd live at the Target if they sold beds like at the Macy's.

Truthfully, I can't make it out of the Target without spending at least $100 on wonderfully useless things. It is always surprising to me how quickly these cheap little things can become so very expensive, and today's Target day was a day just like that. 

Today's Target day was the same as always and yet so, so different, and discombobulating (a fantastic word), and disorienting, and so now, here is the story of today's Target Day,

-aka- 

Going Out The Way We Came In

-or-

Closure Is Important To Human Emotions

-but if you'd rather-

Let's Make A Target Sandwich

***

So, the other day I needed to go to the Target. 

Well . . . I didn't really need to go to the Target, but I did want some alone time. 

I also wanted to see this brass lamp that I keep on seeing all over Instagram. It is everywhere! It looks so classy!

You probably have one too, right?? Yeah, you do.

Whenever I see this lamp I always catch myself thinking it can never truly be possible that it actually came from the Target. Because it looks way too slick. It's probably not as great in person.

This was a theory I was willing to invest time into.

Mostly, however, the real reason I wanted to go to the Target that day was so that I could end this flipping blog already.

***

I have been ready to be done with this blog for something like ten years at this point.

And always, when I thought about it, I had this idea in the back of my mind that, this, someday, was how I was going to go out.

Which is to say, by going out the way I came in.

By which I mean, by writing about shopping.

Plus, I'd been having hella writer's block for a couple of months and I thought that maybe the long drive might crack something open.

(Well, it didn't.)

(Try picturing a Prius-shaped thought bubble hurtling towards the ever loving embrace of the closest Target, 90 minutes north of here, and you about got it.)

All the drive long I wondered and wondered.
What would I want to say in this, my very last blog post?
What are my messages? What are my themes?? Do I have any of those things??? What has all this been, anyway????
What does a reader even look for in a decent flounce post these days?

I definitely wanted it to be, like, MEANINGFUL.
An essay! You know, one of the good ones.
Make it mean something! On a treadmill! With Dave Chappelle!!

"I was eloquent! Shit!!"

But the more I thought about it, the more I knew. I am just way too over it at this point for something like that. I am just actually that ready.

***

So, this is it. 

Without pomp or circumstance or anything terribly exciting to go along with it, here it is. 

After ten years of blogging, I am closing up shop.

***

(This part is the part at the end where I say, "Hey, guys, thank you.")

Dearest People Of My Blog,

Hey guys. Thank you.

Thank you for always being incredibly fantastic and intelligent and fascinating and kind whenever we've been able to meet in person.

Thank you for your beautifully thoughtful comments and emails.

Thank you for your prayers! I've felt the them, I swear it. Every last one.

Thank you for your sisterhood, for sharing your experiences with faith, infertility, hope, and the hard things, and for letting me feel at times like I was your big sister. This has and will continue to give my life an insanely wonderful added purpose and meaning. It makes me want to cry anytime I think about it.

I'm so grateful for you, you weird little knuckleheads, for supporting me and coming along with me and for liking the same dumb things as me, and for asking me things like where I get my white t-shirts and clogs, and for buying my book, and f or showing up when I've held  events, and for always being so much stinking cooler than me.

Thank you.

Thank your, ladies and gentlemen!

And now for my parting words. My legacy! Get excited!

That lamp at the Target is EVERY BIT as rad in real life as it seems online.

Wouldn't it be nice if everything was like that?

ON NEW YORK NATALIE, MOSCOW NATALIE, AND THE TROUBLE WITH TIME + PLACE

this post is a pep talk to myself. it can also be a pep talk for you, if you'd like.

A million years ago I wrote a post about a version of myself I called New York Natalie.

The idea was that I was living in Idaho, feeling sad and frustrated, waylaid and lost, super sorry for myself, and I had remembered realizing one day that I never felt that way very often (if ever?) when I lived in New York.

I was tougher there. Or something. I felt more grown up. Less flailing.

New York Natalie had a whole different schtick going on. She liked being mature and making adult decisions, she liked saving money and planning for vacations, she liked taking on responsibility and, like, she even liked doing the dishes. (Or, at least she did them more reliably.) New York Natalie was pretty rad. I liked her! She was going somewhere.

At least, she thought she was going somewhere.

(Turned out, she was actually going to Moscow, so...)

***

Now that I've done this enough times to know by scientific reasoning, I can stick this feather in my cap: I'm pretty good at adapting to drastic changes in my environment. I think I do it without even realizing it. Someone called it "chameleoning" the other day, and maybe that's it.

Maybe it's just a lack of any overriding sense of willpower over whatever it is I'm encountering at the time? A white flag?

It's also a little bit like being a sponge. I'm sensitive to my surroundings, usually all it takes is a couple seconds til it soaks right in. Welcome to me, anything and everything!

I also love to try new things. I am sometimes overly open-minded. I can throw myself into just about anything and really get a kick out of it. I have a healthy sense of adventure.

Whatever it is, it's a pretty good quality to have if you don't mind my horn-tooting.
Or at least it is until it involves chameleoning/acquiescing/soaking/adventuring backwards, into a former, lesser version of myself, instead of progressing forward, as maybe all human beings should.

You know. 

***

So, Moscow Natalie. 

Ughhhhhhhhh.

Moscow Natalie was never anybody I wanted to be long-term. Even at the time I was being her, I was aware that Moscow Natalie was merely a survival mode. Just Get Through It Natalie.

Moscow Natalie was stuck in Idaho -- maybe against her will, certainly beyond her control -- and it really funked around with her sense of ownership of the thing. And as a result I'm afraid she was a little bit of a pain in the ass. Obviously it is rather unhealthy for one to compartmentalize oneself in this manner! Do not ye do it! Take it from me!

Still, having now been Moscow Natalie twice, for better or worse, I can tell you. It's a thing. It is definitely a thing.

Being Moscow Natalie es no bueno. Fer nobody. I know this for sure-sure, having now in the process of returning to Idaho also reverted right back into that Moscow Natalie person, relinquishing again any responsibility or control over my own life in exchange for moping around like a petulant child stuck somewhere she doesn't want to be, living each day just to get through it, all-in survival mode, washing her hands of the thing, just, BLAH and SHIT and BLAH and PASS ME ALL THE CHICKENS, and surprise of all surprises, it hasn't been working! I am highly dissatisfied!! I want my money back!!

(Except for my chickens. Chickens for all and to all a good night!) 

So, uh, don't be Moscow Natalie anymore, dorko.

This should be simple, I catch myself thinking a lot. Just embody all the things I liked about myself better while I was living somewhere else, without having to actually *be* somewhere else, be some kind of rad Moscow/New York Natalie hybrid, duh I can do that! I adapt! I've done it! And anyway, I mean, we all can! We can all be that version of ourselves we like best to be, whether or not we have the cheat of a rad city (or whatever else is tickling your pickling) to get us there. Am I right??!?

Okay, yes! 

Challenge, accepted! 

Thrifting hasn't gotten me there. Weirdly enough!?! And neither have granny squares or needlepoint or paint-by-numbers either, come to think of it. It's like this world has gone upside down!! ;)

(The chickens do help, but they're mostly a distraction.)
(MAYBE I NEED A CAT INSTEAD?)

And like I said already, I mean, thinking about yourself like this is a really bad idea. One definitely should not do it.

One cannot solve immaturity by engaging farther into self-centered, immature thought patterns! 

But anyway like I was saying . . .  about myself . . .

***

I'm afraid that maybe the entire Palouse in general just makes me miserable.

Is it the lentils?

I used to think it was the job at SEL that made me miserable. (Well, it was.)

Or my infertility and subsequent feelings of lack of any purpose at all. (Well, yeah, it was that too.)

Maybe the fact that we were poor grad students in a very bad economy with exams stressing the husband to death and back every semester and Peter Pan was always sick and required fancy dog food that even the Maharaja couldn't afford plus the fact that the sun doesn't shine out here for fully half of the year!?!?!! 

Cause obviously... yes. All those things are gonna mess with a person, that's just how that works, and that's all right.
That's just character building mumbo jumbo, or whatever.

But now that I am here again, mis-er-able, with none of those ingredients in my kitchen, and yet I am STILL baking that miserable cake!? AND YET!???!!

Sure, I'm still infertile (or rather, re-infertile after a brief period of non-infertile), but this time I have a kid. I'm a mom!
There's some purpose right there, slap you on the face with it.
We can easily afford the groceries.
None of my pets are unhealthy or even slightly high maintenance in the least!
(Chickens. Pass me all of the chickens!)

And yet!?!?

Just kidding it's still fully dark here fully half of the year.
That suuuuuuuucks. 

(Never underestimate the Seasonal Affective Disorder and that funny in-betweenness funk one always finds oneself in whenever the weather tries to change up it's seasons on you. That there a tip from me to you.) 

Maybe it's not the ingredients that's the problem, maybe it's the cake itself?
One layer of perceived lack of control, followed by a layer willingness to roll over and give whatever away in order to merely exist, followed by a layer of bad decisions, topped off with a nice chocolate ganache.

OR MAYBE THIS IS A MIDLIFE CRISIS!

That's an exciting thought. Maybe I need a sports car instead of a cat?

(Are cats the female equivalent of a sports car?)

(Oh gosh, wouldn't that be sad kind of?)

Maybe it's just the sheer lack of control over any of my life circumstances right now.

But here's a jolt of truth that helps to burn off any excess misery calories: I am here for my husband. I am here because I like to be wherever my husband is. I like that guy! I like this family! And I am willing to bet we are all where we are because of something we love that outweighs the rest of the shit that we don't love. Brandon is the primary breadwinner of this here shindig, and Brandon's professional needs do take precedence over a lot of other things. And while that can be hard, and while we're definitely allowed to grant ourselves that truth, we shouldn't get caught up in it.

Because getting caught up in it, that's selfishness. 

Pouting about a choice I made because of a choice I made because of a choice I made (Idaho Brandon / Breadwinner Brandon / Marrying Brandon) is hideous. I made that choice. The truth is, the control has been mine all along, and it continues to be mine even now.

The real truth is that it has never been about control at all.

***

I think the realities of selfishness are much more complex than we like for them to be. In fables, it's easy to differentiate the evil, selfish hag from the pure, thoughtful princess. That's the lesson. Nobody wants to be selfish, even the worst of us human beings on this planet want to believe that we are acting out of something higher than selfishness. But it's humbling when you realize just how often selfishness can disguise itself as other things. It's humbling when you realize the struggle you're in is a struggle you happily took on and would happily take on again and again.

I think to say that control is what will save us is to say that we are better and smarter than we actually are, or that somehow we could do better with this life than what the spark of creation has been doing all this time.  

It turns out, it is selfishness that's making me miserable. And that I can work with. 

So, I had myself a talk with Moscow Natalie.
(It definitely looked alarming from a mental health point of view.)

Moscow Natalie is going to try and bugger off for a while. She's not terribly helpful, and I don't very much enjoy her, and I have better ways to attend to this deal, and 25 wasn't a good time in ANYBODY'S life, thank you and you're welcome I am in no hurry to repeat that part of my life yikes.

I've also decided that since New York Natalie may take me some time, and since she probably wasn't even all that great to begin with (I probably have overly fond memories of her that are making her seem way cooler than she actually was), maybe it's time to come up with a different Natalie. 

A better Natalie.

I think I'm going to call her Kick Ass Natalie. 

This one won't be location-specific.

FOR CHERRILL

A few weeks ago, my grandma Cherrill passed away. It's sort of strange to wrap my head around still. She died at home, surrounded by all her people. Her funeral was absolutely beautiful. 

Like my grandma Shirley, my grandma Cherrill also suffered from Alzheimer's Disease. (I am so screwed.) In Cherrill's case, her Alzheimer's primarily affected her short term memory, while Shirley's affected . . . well, all of it. 

The experience of losing both grandmothers like this within a couple months of each other has made me pause everything, like a car at a red light. This loss sort of creeps up on me, and is leaving quite a dent in the armor. A not-bad dent--this is life, after all, but I don't mind admitting that I'm bruised a little bit, and that every now and then I stop what I'm doing and question the air around me:
WHAT GIVES??" It's been an adventure, navigating myself + my emotions. It seems like just as I catch my breath, there is something else happening, almost always right away, almost always one right after the other, boom boom boom. That's my life these days. I'm sort of everywhere.

I'm coming to the realization though that maybe I'm not being piled on at all; maybe this is normal? Maybe this is adulthood? Maybe this is parenthood and daughterhood and wifehood and just what life is made of? Piles of life and piles of garbage; beautiful, messy garbage. Maybe losing loved ones and moves being tough and houses being sold out from under us and transitions being weird and families getting older and jobs being stressful is the way it is supposed to be and not some sign that we're doing it wrong. Maybe floating through life like a zen master of patience and acceptance isn't what's best. Maybe struggling with the struggle isn't something I should feel ashamed of?

I don't know, I'll let you know when I find out.

In the meantime I'm going to write about cousins. Like Huck and his 'super cousin,' Cole.

Cole is actually my cousin. He's three. 

I'm one of 40 grandkids of Leonard + Cherrill Lovin. Huck there is one of 24 great-grandbabies. 

We all grew up right there in that desert in the very same spot, more or less, like a crazy commune of talent show participants. And because I grew up like that, fully surrounded by family--in school, at church, at home, at dinner--I learned to love + trust my uncles like fathers; my aunts I can turn to for advice like mothers. A few have stepped in at times to pull that weight when immediate family was too far to help. My cousins were my first best friends and my first best enemies. They were the best people on earth to sing with and watch Newsies with and play Miss USA with. (I always insisted on being Miss Hawaii.) I grew up with this crazy kind of confidence in who I was and what I could do, mostly I assume because of the collective power of love from family that I had behind me, and I'm starting to guess that might actually be pretty rare. 

My grandparents have this tree in their back yard. I'm not sure what kind it is, but it is the perfect climbing tree. My cousins and I scratched our names into that tree so many years ago I can't even remember doing it. I climbed that tree daily for years. First thing after we arrived in Mesa, just to see if I still could, I scrambled up that thing and guess what? I could! 

Guess what else: Teaching your kid to climb a tree is a joy I never thought to expect. And then to watch that kid climb up that tree so quickly and confidently, and to watch him spend a few minutes up there just scoping things out + having himself a little think? That right there is the ultimate heaven.

Not much has changed after all these years, even though so much has changed in my family since I was a kid. But the pieces of the puzzle are all still there. The same old churches, the same old pools, the same old houses . . . even if we don't live in them anymore. There are still Lovin dogs everywhere. Dogs! Still all mostly insane + named after Disney characters and I still can't keep track of them all. And of course there is still the ever-important sausage-y chihuahua living at my grandpa's house, this one is named Minnie. Minnie hides in the sofa once things get loud at grandpa Lovin's house, as is customary among Lovin chihuahuas.

Thankfully, things still get mad loud at Grandpa Lovin's house.

Though maybe not as frequently as they used to.

Sandy is still always at the piano, still writing songs and teaching them to her people, still accompanying that classic Lovin voice: solid + steady, just a little bit wavy. We all still sit in the living room together just to listen, and every now and then when our talking becomes too loud we are still told to "shh or get out of here!"

The Westerns are still always on, always always always on. John Wayne still looks like my grandpa to me. Campfire cowboy songs will probably always be the soundtrack to my childhood. Those old beat up cowboy hats of grandpa's are still hanging out on top of all sorts of weird things--lamps + bedposts + bedside tables--all over my grandparents' room, only now that room is just my grandpa's. That's not my favorite thing to consider.

Arizona sunsets are still absolutely hideous. ;)

Those photos are straight out of the iPhone camera. Good gravy. So ugly. And the Diving Lady (now renamed The Diving Gini (long story)), still lights up every night as she dives into her tiny neon pool. 

That old house two blocks over from my grandparents house? Still feels like I could peek in that window and see my old white daybed.  

Orange groves still freak me the eff out, because of the scorpions. Thankfully "bad people in groves who want to sell me drugs" is no longer something I worry about too much? (Where did I even get that one?)

But here is what I really want to remember about this trip to Arizona, and about this family I'm lucky enough to be part of. We'll start at the beginning. One of my uncles died a few years ago. He had three children I'd only known from photos, who for various reasons hadn't been part of the family for a very long time. They were always sort of there though, just the same, trapped for eternity as tiny little kids in the giant family portrait hung on the wall in the living room. 

That Saturday at grandma's funeral as all us grandkids were singing Grandma's Song (my aunt Sandy wrote it for us to sing at my grandma's mother's funeral 20 some odd years ago), I noticed in the back of the room four faces that I just knew. I knew I knew them, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out how. After the funeral was over as we all funneled out the door we were able to track them down. And then! There they were! It was them! Our long lost cousins, those same baby features now on adult bodies, with us for the very first time in decades. And the healing that got to happen that night as they joined us for a movie in the backyard!

All because of a little lady named Cherrill who had the power to make family the most important thing in the world, no matter the situation, no matter how long you've been away.  

When you're one of us, you're one of us. And not just because our gene pool tends to spit out cookie cutters of each other, making finding a Lovin in a crowd about as easy as spotting a needle in a needle store. :) 

I'm so grateful for my people, and for the tiny, soft spoken woman who made it all happen. She was a tether. And a huge force in a very small shell. In her honor, I hope to pick up where she left off and try a little harder to put my family first--all of them--and to remember who I am, and to remember the wonderful legacy I've been given. I've been given a legacy of love. A lot of a lot of love. 

ORCHARDS AND PUMPKINS AND SCENES FROM THE PALOUSE

photos from a birthday weekend spent picking apples at the wsu orchards, sprinkled in with a whole lot of nonsense, is about to happen in this post. are you ready?

this is the view of our house from inside the coop. lucky girls. 

I am happy to report that I am a new mama eight times over. Four hennies in the coop out back, and four chickies in the brooder in the basement. Yikes. I absolutely love it. As of now my ladies are finally clucking happily in their coop again after I (stupidly) let them out (way too soon) the other day for ranging and then had to usher them back up into the coop before nightfall the hard way. With a fishing net. 

My ladies are STUPID. Or else stubborn. Oh my gosh I just love them to pieces. 

The other day Linda gave me her very first egg. It was on the day when she was being the biggest turkey ever. I thanked her profusely, because that is the kind of thing I take very seriously. A woman's ovulatory output is a gift and not to be taken lightly. It felt like a "Hey, I like you! I don't hate it here!" greeting card from Miss Lonely Linda just for me. Of course it's Linda's egg. OF COURSE. Linda is the stubbornest. There's got to be a correlation. On the days she's allowed outside to range she immediately roosts up in the lilac tree behind the canning shed and she DOES NOT BUDGE. You can reach up there with the back end of a broom and poke her rudely in her bum and she does not care. It's all sneak attack grabs at her thighs with Linda and then she gives you THE LOOK as you carry her home. The rest I can catch with the net, after cornering them between the juniper shrub and the rose bushes, but Linda. Linda makes you work for it.

The guy at Tri-State was really fantastic when I went to buy that fishing net. Here's this dumb girl in the fishing aisle, worrying about net thread count or whatever because heaven forbid I trap my ladies with synthetic netting material, and the dude goes, "Goin' fishin'??" like it was the last thing on earth I would be doing (well, it is) and then I said, "Yes, I am. For chickens." He laughed and shook his head and backed away slowly, and there I was left to ponder whether I wanted a wood handled fishing net or aluminum? And then I drove through the McDonald's on the way home for a Diet Dr Pepper and got to reenact that exact conversation with another guy, the drive through window guy, because the net was too long to fit in the trunk so it was angled next to me through the passenger seat and he was like, "Here's your soda, uhhh, nice fishing net?" 

I was afraid that I had traumatized the poor ladies with that fishing net but ironically enough, every time I've had to play chicken hockey I've been rewarded the following day with a big fat egg. So, I mean . . . chickens, man.

Earl the Squirrel was outside running laps this morning across the top of our crooked old fence, back and forth from his oak tree at the edge of the lawn to some pot of acorn gold near the front that he must have discovered. I'm not normally one to name my backyard squirrels or anything, but this guy is just the funniest dude, you'd have done it, too.  

I love to watch Earl in the mornings. He is very intense about things. Occasionally he'll stop at the window and I'll glance in his direction from the work table in the kitchen and we'll have ourselves a real moment. That Earl is a soulful old dude. He knows what's cookin'. He scrambles so loudly with his nails against the wood as he goes back and forth in his duties that it's hard not to feel he's become a necessary fixture in our morning routine. "Hey, Earl," Huck says to the window when he comes into the kitchen for a waffle. He looks like he's in pretty good shape for the winter, that Earl; he's got his beady little eyes on the prize. 

I think my favorite thing about Idaho that my penchant for romanticizing the stupidest things gets fed out here like a king. ;)

Please to appreciate Huck's Lloyd Christmas hair. (I kind of miss the swoosh.) (But seriously is he not the cutest thing or what, crap.)

Giant sunflower meets giant sunflower seed addict, begets much pondering on the meaning of life, et cetera. ;)

The WSU orchards are open for the next weekend or so, if you're in the area you should definitely plan to spend a few hours there before the season ends. 

And there goes Earl again. He has easily been back and forth with at least 6 acorns since I sat down here just now.

I worry when I write posts lately that I might sound sad. This is a funny, funky time in the life of Ye Olde Natalie, and I'm not sad, per se, but I'm definitely feeling things. (And starting Clomid again soon, so, you know. WATCH OUT. ;)

I'm still figuring out how I feel about Idaho Round Two. You know, life in Idaho the first time around was marked with a whole lot of sadness, and that old sadness scared me when we first made plans to come back. I didn't know if it would find me again. But New York changed me more than I realized. The stress of my life in the city--the people, the keeping up, the competition, the games--it was a lot, and now that it's gone, it's noticeable.  It takes a certain kind of person to thrive in that environment, and while I loved it there--oh I loved the city--I definitely don't think anyone could ever accuse me of having thrived there. It wasn't a perfect fit. Dressing for the angles of a stressed out version of me was fun though, I admit. Clothes fit worried Natalie different than they fit healthy Natalie, and I embraced it as best I could, but I was hard and I was uptight and I was worried all of the time. Now I sometimes feel waylaid a little, but I never feel that New York edge, and I am so grateful to see it gone. I'm dressing for the softer me again, literally and metaphorically. It's good. It's an adjustment. It's hard for me, because this is my limitation right now in my life, but I'm happy. Sorting through things, yes, getting myself prepared for another round of fertility treatments, yes--another round of exposing my vulnerable hopes to the harsh air of possible failure--but I'm welcoming it. The different ways I experience myself and my life out here has been both melancholy and sweet. And the different decisions New York pushed me to make have made this time in Idaho so much better, so much easier, so much more whole. New York stretched me hard and fast and put me through the wringer, but it's made Moscow me a better Moscow me, and for that I'm so thankful.

And I guess I want to say for those following along, and for those especially who are maybe on a similar plot line as me, trying to navigate new-old changes and not sure how to label these feelings that swoop in and out when things get upended: I like it. I'm good. I am whole and I am raw and I am experiencing it all. And I'm in it for keeps.

There is no looking back.

ELK RIVER FALLS

It is eternally weird being back in Moscow. Especially after such a long time away spent convinced I'd never have to see this place ever again.

Brandon and I had some version of this conversation easily thirty billion times while living in New York:

"Hey! Let's move back to Moscow!"

"Oh my gosh that's the worst idea ever." 

"Wouldn't it be amazing to move back to Idaho? Maybe after we retire?"

"Yes!  . . .  Except that sounds awful, it snows too much there."

"Man! Sometimes I think we really should just move back to Moscow and get it over with already."

"Right? Except, you can't go back to Moscow. I'm not sure Moscow really exists."

Well, crap.

We've had a lot of places on our list of places we want to re-experience now that we are old and here again and things are so familiar yet so bizarre. For instance, this weekend we went to see Brandon's office in the accounting department at WSU, in the same building where he went to get his MBA a million years ago. 

On his bookshelves in his office he'd lined up a few of his old textbooks, along with his various diplomas (all eleven million of them), and a few pieces of nostalgia from vacations + experiences past. A souvenir from the Statue of Liberty, a teacher's voodoo doll from our time in New Orleans, and his old WSU student ID card. Oh gosh, Brandon was so young back then. I glanced from item to item, everything was just fine, until I got to his ID card and I was struck with this almost overwhelming physical response to it. 

Hey! I know that boy! I fell in love with that boy! What happened to that boy?? 

It was the face I spent hours looking at in our ward directory at BYU when we were apart, first getting to know each via other long-distance emails, staying up late on the phone when we both knew we had to wake up early the next morning. And I realized I missed him. It was so weird. I was with him, but I missed him, and I'm still trying to figure what all that was. I struggled not to cry the rest of the day and I'm still not really sure why. 

Right, so, one of the places on our list of places to re-experience was the hike at Elk River Falls. 

The last time we were here I was twenty-five weeks pregnant, and while talking with Brandon about how weird Huckleberry bushes are, I decided I knew what I wanted to name my baby. 

Huckleberries won't grow anywhere but in the wild. Did you know that? You can't really cultivate them in your own garden, they don't flourish that way. You have to find them where they are. Because they can only grow where they want to grow.

That is so my baby for you.

(That is so my Idaho for you.)

Oh, it's weird to be back home. It's weird and wild and sad and wonderful. And hard as hell. But damn, is it good.

ON LEAVING NEW YORK / ON MOSCOW, THE SEQUEL

Nestled low among the rolling hills of northern Idaho lies a tiny little town surrounded by wheat fields. 

Six hours from anywhere, in the middle of nowhere, the town was called Moscow. 

(Rhymes with Costco.)

This is the story of a girl with no home.

--or--

This is the story of a girl whose home is everywhere. 

Moooooviiiiing to Moscowwwwww. What is there to be said about moving to Moscow.

I think we've seen this episode already?! We've already done this once, right down to the tiniest detail, and it goes so beyond deja vu. It feels like time travel. It feels like bizarro worlds colliding. It feels like when you dream that you woke up and got ready for school, and then you really wake up, and you're like, oh man, again?? It feels like we are being given a mulligan, like we're just re-doing our Moscow time from the first time around, the first time twice, only this time the details are just a little bit different, and most of it is much much easier. 

Por ejemplo.

Instead of moving here from Brooklyn to go to school, we are moving here from Brooklyn to teach at school. Con mucho paycheck, gracias and cha-ching!

Instead of moving here from Brooklyn with a neurotic terrier named Pan, this time we are moving here from Brooklyn with a four-year-old named Huck. (Though really, exactly the same thing.)

Instead of moving here from Brooklyn Heights, this time we are moving here from South Slope! SO MUCH DIFFERENT. lol.

Everything here is precisely the same as it was the first time around, and yet nothing at all is remotely the same. I can't put my finger on it. But the Wal Mart is now a Super Wal Mart and there is no Miley Cyrus line to be found. 

***

I keep thinking about how the last time I held my baby as he slept through a long R train ride home was the last time I'll ever hold that baby sleeping on a long R train ride home. Just two weeks ago. Huck had fallen asleep on his hard orange bucket seat with his head on my lap and his long legs straight up in the air, resting against Brandon's shoulder. So I scooped him up by the armpit (he's getting so heavy!), placed one long leg on each side of my lap, and then I gently rested his head against my neck, like we do. Subway Sleeping Position, TM. I let the rocking of the subway train move us from side to side, and ran my fingers through his hair. Just like always. Just a mom and a baby swaying with the rhythm of the city, just one last time. It breaks my heart just a little. At the same time, I don't think I need it. 

***

I sat at the gate at the SeaTac airport last week with that same very-sleepy Scorpio, just one week later, his heavy head knocking against my clavicle as he bounced in and out of falling asleep. We were waiting on our final connection, a puddle jumper of a plane that was about to traverse the entire state of Washington in just under an hour, with a free glass of wine, they told us. I've decided that's strategic. They have to lube you up first. It's the only way to bearably leave all of civilization behind like this, to come to the middle of nowhere, to this Bermuda Triangle of nonsense and wheat fields and cows, where time stands still and nothing is real and it takes six hours to get to anywhere worth being. 

Perhaps Moscow is like the Hotel California? I'm starting to form a theory on this. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. I keep wondering, did I never really leave? Were these last five years all a dream? Is this the Matrix?

Maybe it's more like LOST. This makes me the Kate, yes? Not the doctor lady, please. But would that make Brandon the Shepherd or the Sawyer? Good crap let Brandon be the Sawyer. Only but Brandon is such a Shepherd. Sigh. Oh hell we are so stuck in a total time loop here. 

***

I think what I'm going to miss the most about New York City is that feeling of pure, sweaty, blissful exhaustion at the end of a long day. Basic stuff is harder out there. Satisfyingly hard. You work for it. The way the dry cleaning bag clings to the skin on your arms when you're carrying it home on a over-warm evening in the middle of June. The walking. The schlepping. Already I miss the schlepping.

But WHY are the parts that hurt most the best part of city living? Like, crying in public. Why do I have the fondest memories of stepping in gross puddles of gutter water, and not of bike rides through the park? Weird.

***

For a while I found it all quite humorous. I really enjoyed my weird emotional detachment to the situation. People would ask me if I was excited to move or if I was going to miss New York City, and I'd sort of shrug at both and say "sure," like someone had just asked me if I was okay with Pepsi instead of Coke. 

***

Being in New Orleans for the week (post on that one in the works), that really helped. It made a nice break between the sadness of leaving and the sadness of arriving, and it gave everything such a surreal feeling, like all of this was just another extension of vacation, just another airport, nothing permanent, nothing real, until, that is, I glanced at a face at the airport in Seattle that I thought I maybe recognized. And then shit got rill.

Do I know him from work? Instantly I'm doing all my best memory searching. Or maybe I know him from church? If I know him from church, he's probably noticed my knees, and that my shorts are a few inches more above them than they were the last time I was here, and oh brother, will this be awkward? Is he smiling at me because he knows me? Should I remember his name? Or is this an example of 'This Isn't New York Anymore,' because people here are allowed to smile at strangers, and oh gosh, of course! That's it! The people here just haven't been trained the way I have to never make eye contact with strangers! And that--that right there--that's when it hit me. That 'This Isn't New York Anymore' feeling, that's a doozy. And not only is this not New York anymore, but now it's also the Palouse, instead. It's Schweitzer again. It's that place and those people and that culture that I nearly let bury me alive last time. I only barely escaped from by clawing madly out of the mud with the dirt under my nails and it didn't need to be that way, and I won't let it be that way again, only but what if it is? And and no, I really do think that I know that guy from somewhere.

Once the dam finally broke it broke good and clean. And I needed that. You have to let that sadness out before you can replace it with reality. Uncontrolled sadness purged out of every inch of me that night and thank the heavens. Once the tears came they didn't leave for hours. I was so grateful for that full head of Huck mullet to hide behind, and later for that dark plane and the roar of the engines to hide behind. And then I decided to be SO. MAD. at BRANDON. INSTEAD.

Anger aaaalways feels better than sadness or confusion. Keep that one in the back of your pocket for later. ;) and then it was over, and hope and excitement elbowed it's way in, and now I have a hard time really remembering what about this move made me so sad to begin with.

***

Here is what it is like in Moscow right now:

Anytime you go outside you immediately sneeze three times. I forgot about this! I'm allergic to practically the entire planet out here! Also your lips super get chapped at just about the same time every evening. You can set your watch by it.

Our old house on B doesn't even feel remotely mine anymore. Brandon is heartbroken that the new owners haven't kept up the landscaping, I'm surprised I didn't hate living on the corner of a busy street like that.

The mornings here are chilly, the nights are cold and crisp. It's beautiful. You pad around the house in your slippers and the floors creak in spots and the tea kettle starts to whistle and it's exactly what you always wanted in your life. The afternoons get hot and dry, it feels like what I imagine it feels like to be a cookie. The sun bakes hard and all the world smells of stubble burn in the wheat fields. It's pretty close to divine.

My favorite sandwich shop closes at 3. There's an antiques shop I keep wanting to visit that is only open three days a week, and I can never remember which three days those are. They're not logical days for being open, either. Another shop has a sign that says "OPEN SOMETIMES." I find this rather delightful.  

Brandon walked into the kitchen of our rickety farmhouse our first day in town after poking around for a bit and announced, "I AM SO GLAD WE DIDN'T BUY THIS HOUSE!" But that is only because he has NO IMAGINATION.

I waver between thinking this is the most natural thing we could be doing and that this is the worst idea anyone has ever had, ever, and I can't do it. There is no way. This is asinine! This is five steps backwards. This is me giving in too easily and not putting my foot down, and this is going to kill me, this is straight up going to kill me, and oh my gosh how did we ever leave this town, this town is amazing! This town is FANTASTIC. I love it here so much. Oh my gosh this was a really great decision. I am so glad we are back. Let's never leave!!

***

I looooove my farmhouse. Luh-huuuuuve it. I couldn't love a farmhouse more, it'd be impossible. It has apple green shutters, and gables! It has green on its gables and so I am calling it Green Gables, don't you even start to argue with me. 

***

It has been dawning on me slowly that I am going to be back on the hook for nightly dinners again. Unfortunately for all, successful implementation of a nightly home-cooked dinner is going to necessitate me calling it "supper," and probably I need a bell for nightly ringing, that's just how it has to be, there's no point in fighting it.

(Pause here for a moment while I envision myself as the lead in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, sacrificing all my pride and dignity for the sake of a husband, and reading bible verses to boys wearing long johns.)

(Heehee that is an amazing thought!)

***

Jazzy, or Tucker, or maybe it's Bonita, I'm not sure, but at least one of those old horses is still kicking around over there at that farmhouse on D. While stroking that velvety nose the other day, it struck me that this is what I was always meant to be doing, of course. Not hoofing it up the stairs of a dirty subway station, as much fun as that's been, but this. This is where I belong. And I know I've always known it, though it's also somewhat confusing. Does this mean I failed at the city? I don't think so, is that even something you can do? As if success in the city is some kind of value statement. Why would success have to mean staying forever? And seriously, who cares? Maybe all those people who go on and on about how great the city is and how much they love love love it there, and how they're proud that they live in such an amazing city, maybe they're all totally full of it.

. . . . No, definitely not. But maybe.  

And I kicked ass at that city, let's be honest.

*** 

What it really comes down to, I think, at the end of the day, is this:

Home is wherever you fight like hell for. 

This time that fight will be easy. And me, I got my war gear on.

It closely resembles a trucker hat.