Moon and Stars Watermelon and all the Reasons Why

We have finally settled it. Shaken off the dust and started to get comfortable. The last boxes broken down, the pictures hung and books tucked into their moss green shelves. Over the course of the last few months I have had to convince friends that the "settling" part was a good thing. A bold and brazen thing. We were not choosing a life of less than, we were not making a choice based on second best. We wanted to move to Kansas, as difficult as that was for some of the ones we held closest to reconcile. What are you going to DO there?, they asked. Then we told them, truly from the core of who we are, that it was for a slower life. For time. For quilt making and growing things and room to do nothing. They shook their heads in astonished disbelief. Boring, some said. Perfect, we said.

It has been a whirlwind few weeks and now that I can finally breath I am both in slight awe and bewilderment about the fact that we are actually living here. Not that the 1,800 mile drive didn't hammer that home mile by mile but, it has taken a moment for it to root in me. New air. Thick and warm and full of humming. New sky stretched out far and wide roiling with thunderclouds thick as heavily whipped cream. The ruby tomatoes and pearly silver ears of corn from someone's little farmstand. A fantastically sexy and sweet watermelon called Moon and Stars. New. And this life fits like we have been living it for years and years.

The windows are open and through the heavy soupy summer air I hear locusts and crickets, see fireflies and a dusting of the nights first stars. It's a glorious thing to behold. I am home. And it feels just right.

Yes Dorothy, We Really are in Kansas

So we made the big leap to "The Middle". Both the literal and the figurative middle; into the middle of so much family and into the middle of the country. In actuality, it wasn't a very big leap at all. At least emotionally it felt very necessary and authentic in a way that few things do. Leaving San Francisco for Wichita has been a compelling and necessary experiment in human connection, in creating a specific and deliberate life. One that we were willing to leave Northern California for. Yes. We know.

The conversation had been floating in the ether for some time but the reality of it existed in some other parallel space unconnected to our daily lives. A small but persistent voice that would orbit around and try and establish some sure and level purchase. And then we started talking about raising chickens and having a garden the size of an overpriced San Francisco flat. And we talked about goats and making our own cheese. We talked about responsibility and hard work and dreams as big and wide as the Kansas sky. We talked about seasons and snow and weekends at the lake. We talked about being closer to family and closer to the pulse of the country- though many would argue with me that the pulse exists solely on the periphery. And then too, he started growing. The Angry Giant had the audacity to try and become a functioning baby (on his way to little person) in his own right without regard to his father and I.

The longing for this other life began to overshadow our existence in the life we occupied. A life we truly and deeply and passionately lived and were present and full in. But things were missing. Nostalgia can be deceptive and both the husband and I realized this. Regardless, this fierce current was propelling us east. We wanted room to grow and explore and get dirty. We wanted to raise our son in the open air with room to run so far and so fast that the sheer size of the world would make him and us, dizzy. Suddenly the city became too small to contain all that we had verbalized, thought and willed.

We bought lots of boxes that weekend and started to pack. We called our family and told them we were coming home.