Moving Part 28 - Landing in Cambridge, Mass

It did't hit me that we were moving to the East Coast until I saw Lake Michigan from thousands of feet up in the air. That beautiful lake that always seemed like an ocean to me until last week when I saw its eastern shore for the first time in my life. At that moment I knew we were leaving all we ever considered normal and were starting over in a foreign land... New England! I felt like Bart Simpson; mesmerized by the counter clockwise flush of Australian toilets some years back. I realized just how must our orientation is rooted in time and place, that the Pacific Northwest is as much home to me as Grandma and Grandpa are to others. I believe I love the Pacific as much as Merriweather Lewis did the first time he saw it.

But Boston is beautiful. It feels like Italy, like Guanajuato, Mexico. Despite that so much US history transpired here, it doesn't feel like America to me. So strangers in a strange land are we. At our core, Mike and I are West Coast people. Slow paced, flower sniffing, coffee sipping, friendly people. So how do we like it? We love it!!! It's a new experience and we couldn't be enjoying ourselves more.

As for E-news, crawling is so last month, ma! The girl is entirely about pulling herself up to standing, and if possible, pushing furniture along as she tries to walk. I remember in our last days in Seattle, putting Emmy to bed only to find her rounding the corner into the kitchen hours later on her own. It was like she was looking for a party to crash or something. She might well have been frying up an omlette as shocked as I was by the sight. Seeing her move around like she is now she doesn't seem so much like a baby already. I feel that at any moment she is going to look up and say to me, "How dee do, Mom," as if she's been talking all her life. The girl is growing!

Pictures to come when I take them. Lots of beautiful sights just outside our apt. Shall I continue? Are people still checking up on this blog? I'm fishing for some comments here!

E napping on our borrowed mattress... thanks Andrea!