“We are all, at heart, gradualists, our expectations set by the steady passage of time.” –
Malcolm Gladwell
June 17 was my birthday, marking
“one more time around the sun” – the reassuring repetition of a familiar planetary journey. Almost enough to lull one into false expectations. But life does not move like a fixed planet. Change is likely to chart a course of its own, with a sudden shift at a “moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point” –
The Tipping Point – in the words of author Malcolm Gladwell.
That would explain the past year – and why blog readers haven’t seen so much of me in the blogosphere.
Not that I’m complaining. I am grateful. So many things, over which I had little or no control, went well. But CHANGE occurred. The gradual five-year post-retirement plan (my husband’s) became a nine-month pre-retirement whirlwind that moved front and center on our radar.
MOVE was the eye of our personal hurricane. Even as we began conversation with a realtor, we had no idea of the fast and furious days to come.
In Bare Bones
Here it is in bare bones: We first found a place in Austin, Texas, for my 93 year-old mother-in-law (our prime reason for moving); sold our New York house; culled stuff from 26 years in one place – including over 250 books (a new-found love for e-books!); found a house in Austin; said good-byes to dear friends in the Hudson Valley with a pang of sorrow and promises of Facebook, phone, and otherwise keeping in touch; MOVED; unpacked (all but a last couple of boxes - papers over which I developed decision-fatigue), and began the settling-in and finding-our-way-around process. (Whatever did folks do before Google Maps?!)
Sometimes amid the speed of things I would pause, along with my husband, take a breath, and try to let my spirit catch up with physical events. I had not seriously thought about leaving the Hudson Valley – until I did.
Amazing what a different mind-set will open up! We had done this sort of thing before – another Texas move, a move to Nigeria – but not in a long time. Still, change is good for the brain – and the spirit. Our move has already had good results.
My nonagenarian mother-in-law is thriving with family nearby. We live close enough to one set of adult children to share a meal or a movie or a hike – what a joy! Our home is a new point of gathering for more family, too, and a growing garden of new friends as we learn our way around a new community, in all the many paths of community life.
Quietly in the Background
As grateful as I am, these life events and related things have been
a HUGE interruption to my writing life. (In addition to work on a new author website – to be launched soon!) I have a publisher waiting patiently for a book over-due, and you, my blog readers, have barely heard from me.
Other writers might have coped better,
but at last I am here – connecting with you now from my author’s desk in a new place. Writing a book means that my blogging time is limited. But there are new writer resources I want to share with you - and the on-going learning that beats at the heart of the
creative paradigm.
Some change, I am reminded, happens quietly in the background, with subtle shifts – like the growing of a writer’s brain.
Related Blog Post: Birthday Flowers, Birthday Reflections
