Starting Over…

Gung Hay Fat Choi! Never has the Lunar New Year seemed like such a good idea. 2011 hasn’t seemed to have much to recommend it thus far, what with the ice, cold, and illness it has had to offer, so we’re gratefully looking to the Year of the Rabbit to begin. Can’t believe it’s February already — ! In the dissertation countdown, D. now has five months until his oral exams, and his first deadline to turn in a completed first draft.

The next few months promise to be better. The program for our March concert has been set — and it’s definitely a long one, timed down to the second to take advantage of the orchestra until the final moment. (The Musicians Union is pretty fierce.) We’ll be singing a few of the aforementioned “choral classics,” including, for our choral aficionados, the Parry, I Was Glad, Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine, a really gorgeous arrangement of Elgar’s Lux Aeterna from Nimrod, and the Easter hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana — PLUS the Rossini Vespers! Yes, there will be the usual twelve minute or so intermission, and boy are we glad.

Also, in March, we’ve got company coming — our last of the year, unless the Georgia friends come in June — we may have T’s “little” though-taller-than-she-is-and-has-been-since-he-was-thirteen brother and niece coming to visit, if all the passport issues go well. Looks like they’ll be our last guests, though; after March, the Purge and Pack will continue in earnest. So far, T’s rid the house of three suitcases full of books, and next week will weed out all of the extra clothes that won’t be needed. After that, small appliances and furniture will be sold and given away — because we want to travel as lightly as we can. We still have no idea where we’re going, but especially after D’s last bout of illness, T. is beginning to feel like the East Coast city slickers in the 1800’s who were told to move West to help out their consumptive relatives. Much as we love mist and fog, there’s something unhealthful about it in a big city, and we’ll have to find someplace either cleaner or drier — or both. D. has been sick here every winter, at least twice, and was sick for the entire month of January. He’s finally — gratefully — on the mend… and job-hunting.

Right now, we’re trying to be open to possibilities, but T. would very much like to live where she can have a few herbs growing in a sunny patch — even a sunny patch of concrete with little pots. D. tends to be looking toward where the best money could be made, as he’s looking ahead to those student loan bills, but he’s planning to do some sort of teaching or mentoring wherever we end up, even if it’s volunteering somewhere. One of the best things we’ve learned from being here is more of what our personal strengths are. Living abroad, you learn to do without familiar things, but you also learn what you cannot do without. Despite the pipes and the mold on the window casings, with which T. battles on what seems an hourly basis, it’s been a good experience.

…and it will be an even better one when all the loose ends are tied up, and we’re on the road to somewhere else.

Meanwhile, we’re scuffing our feet in our metaphorical bunny slippers, and vowing to take what comes with curiosity and equanimity. Just like a rabbit.