Don't Push the River (it flows by itself)

Just came back from an evening at Bement, Lily's new school. She starts the Thursday after Labor Day. First there was a tea with new parents and teachers, and then the fourth grade parent reps threw a game night party for the kids with pizza and such.

The whole feel was so welcoming. To a man or woman, everyone said, I hope you like Bement as much as we do. I hope Bement will as good for your child as it has been for ours. I hope your family will be as happy as ours is.

We talked with Lily's new teacher, Mrs. Mullens, who was really nice and has been in the biz a long time. She's been at Bement for 18 years and taught before that, too. I gather she's the stricter teacher, which should be a good choice for Lily. She's originally from Nebraska (I could hear it in her voice) and that's a good sign. I like Midwesterners.

The Bement folks were very friendly and welcoming, as I say, and the best part was, there was Lily, laughing and running and shouting and playing with her new classmates. I love to see that, to see her comfortable and friendly after nearly a year of considerable stress. The whole Amherst time was so stressful, if only because it was all so new (and it wasn't just because of that).

Around the house front, yesterday we had a washer, dryer, and freezer delivered to the basement. Tomorrow the plumber will install them, along with a double sink. The current washer-dryer is going to someone on FreeCycle, and that little closet off the kitchen will turn into a pantry and a place for the broom, etc. Yahoo! We'll have to trek to the basement to do laundry, but that'll be good for me, and easier in the long run.

Also, eventually we'll have Sheetrock and a floor in the basement laundry room, and some storage shelves, and I hope a long table, so we can do some art work, batik, or tie-dye, or making paper. (Ha! Me doing arts and crafts--and enjoying it!) Dave got us a blender off FreeCycle this week and Lily can show us how to make paper. She learned at camp this summer. He also got the Klutz friendship bracelet book for half price and I am going to try making some more. Maybe Christmas presents? My hair wrap from Family Camp gets a variety of comments at work. I like it, though.

So this time last year I was wrestling with wanting to BE IN THE PIONEER VALLEY ALREADY but still needing to take the time to talk to Dave and process and slow down (!!) and check out all our options. We needed to sit with it, and see if it was the right fit -- well, you know the answer to that question...

Family Camp marks the anniversary of the thought of moving here truly being up front and present in my brain. The Sunday before we had a fabulous afternoon in Amherst, eating lunch at Judie's and swimming in the Fort River with a neighborhood beaver. I thought, I even said to Judie, I could live here. By the time we got to Vermont it was a more visible thought, and by the time we left I was telling others at camp that I was thinking about it.

Last week I told them the story about driving home in a driving rainstorm to NYC that Sunday after camp, down I-91 thinking, as we passed Amherst, "if you lived here we'd be home by now." And the terrible traffic, so bad that we pulled over and ate for an hour. And then past the airport on 684 and seeing the weird neon flashy light and thinking over and over, "We're being bombed. We're being bombed." I knew we weren't. But I also knew in my heart that I was done. It was time. Sept. 11 as an automatic reaction five years later erased any last doubts I had.

And now we are here, just three months short of a year. It's odd -- should I stop writing this blog? It was supposed to be about our move here, and we are here.

That was a rhetorical question, of course, and of course I am still moving in here, still transitioning.

But the last of the major transitions happens next Thursday when Lily starts school. The major tasks will have been accomplished -- house, job, school. Yes, there's always more to with the house, and Dave will probably get a job in the not so distant future (I hope it's part-time or consulting). Lily will need to BE at the school, make Bement her own. But she's already started to do that and if tonight is any indication it's going to take her about five minutes.

We spent a wonderful Friday evening in Coney Island last August, with Blair's sister, Barrie, and her partner and their kids. We ate that terrible fried food and rode on all the rides. We saw the weekly evening fireworks, what a show! And then we rode the Wonder Wheel into the night sky.

I'll never be able to listen to Wonder Wheel by Dan Zanes without tearing up:

now the sun is sinking low
lights of coney island glow
all the best friends that i know
are on the wonder wheel

going round and around,
it takes us up and it takes us down
i love the sights and i love the sounds
riding on the wonder wheel

As Barry Stevens says so well,

Thank you!
You were just what I needed!
I'll love you forever!
Good bye!

Brooklyn, my darling Brooklyn, good bye.