the sun's coming up

These changes came softly. For the first week or so I was too busy to notice, my head down, intently sorting through boxes, streets and cupboards. But when I got still and looked around, all I saw was beauty I'd never really known before. When I walked through town, all I found were calm, contented people, quick to offer ideas and a warm welcome. When I headed a mile or so South, all I saw was ocean, ocean, ocean. And I heard myself thinking, "No way is this my home. it's just too good."

The shape of my days is so vastly different than it ever has been. I arrive at work when my feet have taken me there, and I'm free to make my own schedule. This job involves quite a bit of responsibility, and it's the first time I've worked a full 40-hour week in a few years, but I've never had so little stress at work. It must have something to do with my confidence in myself, my boss' confidence in me, and the fact that I am surrounded by therapists all day. Before we left the Bay Area, I kept thinking how nice it would be to at least have a counselor-type of person in my life. Now I have 25 of them.

In the evenings Jon and I eat dinner sitting in our built-in booth, then usually we walk downtown to get some tea, do a little shopping, or just enjoy what the night lighting does to the local scenery. We run into people we know nearly every day, which really makes this place feel like a small town. Actually, it is. The population in this city is slightly less than in South Bend, Indiana. But in many ways, it feels like we live in a big city. Somehow we've landed somewhere with the best of both worlds. If the price of housing wasn't so high, I'd say I'd never leave.

I'm thinking about adding a "visitor calendar" to my blog. I want to share my new surroundings with all of you friends and family members, not to make you jealous, but because beauty does good things to people, and there's quite an abundance of it here. I'm trying to digest the fact that this IS my home now. I guess sometimes we get a whole lot more than what we ask for.