A lot has happened since I posted the beautiful piece from my daughter about falling in love with your neighborhood. We moved. Those two words are loaded with weeks of uncertainty, days of planning, and hours of conversation. We took all our earthly belongings out of a seven by ten foot storage unit and began to unpack in our little red house. We unpacked books and set up a kitchen. We made sure we had electricity, gas, and a parking permit so that the difficult Boston parking could be a fraction easier. We carried boxes upstairs and downstairs, unrolled rugs, and filled out a damage claim for a moving company, ruefully shaking our heads at broken glass from a favorite picture and favorite piece of furniture.
We took walks in our neighborhood, marveling at the old gas lamp posts that light our way at night and the church bells that ring on the hour. We hid boxes and hosted our first guests - and all of this in our first week. When you move a lot you know you have to plant quickly and pray that the transplanted roots take in the new soil. In our case, we wanted to make sure we started in the strong soil of hospitality.
The words and recall sound easy and pleasant, but along with that, every day this week I have gotten lost. Every day.
Last week I didn't get lost. Last week my husband, who has an uncanny sense of direction, was around. If you take him to a city anywhere in the world and allow him to explore for half an hour, you can then blindfold him, turn him around three times, and tell him to find all the land marks within a 10-mile radius. He will be able to take you to said landmarks, even if he doesn't speak a word of whatever language is spoken in the area. It's remarkable.
I am not him. If you take me to a place I should know (like Boston) and you turn me around three times with my eyes wide open I will get lost.
So every day this week I got lost. I got lost in a land with English signs posted everywhere. I got lost on street corners and highways, around rotaries, and in grocery stores. I made traffic mistakes and wandered dazed through stores. I even got lost after I asked for directions!
It is uncanny how easily I become lost in the country that holds a legal claim on my life.
It was (of course) in the grocery store where the "lostness" manifest itself most profoundly. I wandered around for many minutes, only to get stuck between pasta and tomato paste. The cereal aisle I would understand. Many of us understand paralysis in the cereal aisle. But pasta? Tomato paste? You can find those things in almost any little grocery store in the world. We have found it in tiny shops in Egypt and tinier shops in Kurdistan. It's everywhere. So how did I get lost?
Eventually I found my way out, only to get lost going home. To understand the severity of my 'lost' syndrome, you need to know that my new home is only a ten minute walk from the grocery store.
Here's the thing: I did not only get lost - I AM lost. I am lost physically and I am lost metaphorically.
I feel lost in the land of plenty. Lost in choice and direction; lost of ideas and dreams; lost of context and future.
I am lost in grocery stores and I am lost in the online search for meaningful work. I am lost in job descriptions and legalese. I am lost in questions.
As I look for the next right thing, I am achingly, painfully, humorously lost.
I have been in this place before, and I know it can't be rushed. I know that I need to stop, pull over, and breathe.
So that's what I've done. At one point I pulled over to the side of the road and I took a deep breath. I looked at my phone to determine directions. At the grocery store I headed towards the floral section. There in the midst of the beauty of bouquets and greenery, I took a minute to breathe. Again, as I found myself going around a rotary when I should have been heading to the highway, I had to pull over. Only after I pulled over and took a moment to breathe could I move forward.
This physical, mental, and emotional sense of being lost? It's going to take some time so I'd best stop and breathe.
As my friend Neil says so well:
home's the skin we livein, moving its shedding; you
now new and tender they say you leave your
heart, i say your lungs; it may
take some time to breathe From Haiku on Moving - For Friends Newly Moved by Neil Das