Green with Joy

When the leasing agent showed me the apartment I moved into two weeks ago when it was empty, I was drawn to the forest views out of every window. I had that in my place in New Jersey and hated the idea of giving it up. Between the views and the layout (not your usual apartment layout), I knew I had a winner and got my checkbook out on the spot to secure it.

At that time, the trees outside the windows were just big, contorted twigs. There wasn't a leaf on one of them. But I knew that soon there would be.

When I moved in on April 16, there still were zero leaves. It was still quite pretty in an artistic kind of way and I knew to be patient.

Well, about three days ago, the first leaves popped out. Now I have a stunning mixture of green shimmering leaves and brown-grey asymmetrical tree trunks and twisty branches in my view. It's even more awesome than I anticipated.

The tree nearest my balcony has no leaves yet, and I wonder if it's a late bloomer or dead. There are remnants of two abandoned bird's nests in that tree. I'm such a tree dummy that I have no idea what kind of tree it is or what kind of birds would nest there. I hope the tree is alive and does end up majestically green but even if it doesn't there are plenty of luscious trees behind it to fill in the panorama. (When I find my digital camera, I'll take a picture and post it here....Okay, found it later when all of the leaves are out, and the pic is full-tilt boogie for the leaves.)

Who knew that leaves could inspire such joy? After a tough week last week, it feels good to be joyful again. Thank you, Mother Nature. Your timing is excellent!

Reining in the Discomfort that Rains on Me

I liked to think of myself as a relatively unflappable person, mature enough to handle disruptions and bumps in the road, large and small. I was so wrong!

Turns out that I'm like the Princess and the Pea as far as any kind of deviation from the routines of my life go. How disappointing.

Everything in my life has changed in the last couple of months and I'm both enjoying it all immensely and totally upset about all of the discomfort of change. I moved to Maryland last weekend (on the two days of the nasty Nor'easter, as I wrote about in my previous post) and nearly everything is foreign or missing.

New town and state -- and I don't know the streets or highways or nicknames for places or where the closest post office is or where to get good Mexican food or which stores carry Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke or whether talking on my cell phone while driving is legal or not.

New place to live -- and I love it, especially the forest views from every window, but I can't find anything. I scrupulously taped remotes and cords and connectors to each electronic device but can't find my sandals or my receipts for expenses from March or two cushions for my sofa bed or my favorite sheets that match my comforter. I learned just today that the remote for the underground parking garage isn't necessary to get out -- I had wondered why the left door kept opening when I pushed the button instead of the right one. (Duh -- the electric eye lets me out, so the remote is only necessary to get in.)

Even some of the things that should work don't. After they hooked up my phone, I called a new friend here and she told me that another number and name showed up on her caller ID. Sure enough, that's the number that rings in my house. Yet my voice mail works with the number they assigned to me. Verizon will take care of it in two days. How's that for service? And my cell phone somehow made its way into a sink of sudsy water just before I moved so it's new and I don't know how to get the video part to work or download ring tones and I found out the hard way that the same button on the side of the phone that quieted the ringer on my previous phone just cuts off the call on this one.

Don't even get me started on work. Everything there is new, different and not the way I'm used to doing things. Building, phone system, style of desk and office, colleagues, computer, route to work. I don't know where to get envelopes or use the voice mail or transfer a call or find file folders or what the codes are to make photocopies. The name plate outside my office has someone else's name on it.

I'm used to being the answer lady -- after 16 years at my previous employer there wasn't much I didn't know about there -- but here I'm still the one asking questions and trying to get oriented. I can't afford that luxury -- clients and colleagues expect me, as a senior level person, to produce lots and fast and competently.

A good friend of mine, a high-ranking exec, told me recently, "The higher up you are in the organization, the less they tell you when you start working there. They expect you to perform right away and you don't even know where to get a tablet and a pen or where the bathrooms are."

So I'm not handling this all very well. I'm flat exhausted at the end of the day (and I mean day, not even night) from struggling to do everything new. I'm upset at myself for not picking everything up faster. This morning I thought I could at least get to work 25 miles away without my GPS. A normally 30-minute trip took me nearly an hour and a half, so tomorrow I'll hook up my little Garmin friend again. (Best investment I ever made!) I'm frustrated at not being able to just flow through the day, at starting something and then realizing I don't have the next thing I need and don't know where to go to get it or I have to wait days for it. I'm grumpy and ditzy (misplacing things every two minutes because I don't have a routine place to put them) and disorganized and slow and sleepless worrying about all of this.

Yes, yes, yes, I know -- this too shall pass. In six months I won't even remember feeling this way. It is a great adventure. I know this is a very good move for me and I'm excited about it. I see it as a long-term decision. But meanwhile, I'm so uncomfortable with discomfort, having emotionally budgeted for a much smaller amount of it than I am experiencing, and tonight it's 1:00 a.m. and here I am, up stewing.

Keyless in Columbia

My NASCAR key ring sits empty on the table next to my car keys for the first time in my adult life that I can remember. It's the strangest sensation....

I'm moving from Woodbridge, N.J., to Columbia, Maryland -- today. I moved out of my 2,400-sq.-ft., 3-story duplex in Woodbridge yesterday and turned in my keys. (I've been temperamentaly better suited to be a renter than a buyer for years. I like the idea of being able to change my life in short order, which is what I have done this time.) My furniture and "stuff" spent the night in a locked moving van in Jersey City, N.J., and the four guys from White Glove Moving Co. who loaded everything are on their way to Columbia as I write this at 6:00 a.m. from the comfort of a Marriott Courtyard in Columbia. I take possession of my new apartment in three hours.

So I will have been homeless for 17-1/2 hours by the time my new keys are on my ring. I spent nearly four of those hours driving from Woodbridge to Columbia in a merciless driving rain that actually slowed people down on the New Jersey Turnpike. Officially the speed limit was lowered to 45 mph along the whole 100-mile NJ Turnpike stretch of the drive, and people actually "only" drove about 60 in the normally 65-mph zone where traffic usually zips along at about 80.

The drive wasn't much fun. We -- my friend Michele from Seattle who's (thankfully) helping me move and I -- only saw one accident on the way down and it wasn't serious, but the rain was relentless and intense and the wind whipped at the car in bumpy gusts. It took us longer than usual because of the weather and we were both eager to get to the hotel to eat dinner and settle in for a long nighttime nap after our long day of moving. But our accommodations were (and are) comfortable (I love Marriotts) and a good meal at Red Robin ended the day on a happy note.

My move is occurring, unfortunately, on the two days of a nasty record-breaking Nor'easter. They talked about it on TV for days before it hit. Yesterday was the driving, pelting, soaking-everything rain, nearly 8 inches worth. (I thought I saw animals lining up two-by-two.) I hated the idea that my furniture and zillions of boxes and accessories would get wet and damaged in the few feet between my garage and the moving van. We'll see how it all ends up. Today, though, is the wind, and I mean major-league wind. On the news this morning they are saying it's gusting to the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane. Gusts are up to 60 mph, averaging around 45 mph. The trees outside our 4th-floor hotel room window are swaying back and forth like animated dancing figures in a Disney musical. I hope the guys in "my" moving van are faring well on the drive down. Scary, this wind is scary.

So the few hours of being homeless for me are about as cushy and comfortable as they can be. I am grateful for my life and my blessings. Every day I am but this morning I am especially so. If the biggest thing I'm worried about in my homeless hours is a fierce storm (and how I'm going to fit everything into half the space I had in New Jersey), I'm in great shape.

Michele just asked me, "Doesn't it feel good to wake up not in New Jersey?" I laughed. More than that, it feels better to wake up in my new home town and tomorrow I'll wake up in my own bed in my new home in my new home town. The rain and wind will be gone and it will be warmer, in the 50s. And my NASCAR key chain will be full again.