The End of Radio Silence

It has been weeks of taut waiting, the kind of waiting when your neck is craned looking down the road and all of your attention is captured.  Days and days of this.

What we learned on Tuesday is that in a month and a half we will be moving to Washington DC.

Even to write the sentence feels altering.  Life is altering.

We have lived here in California for nearly ten years.  Though we've known each other for twenty, this is where Ben and I have grown up.  We bought our first house here.  We had our first baby here, sunny- faced Silas.  We had our second baby here, moon-faced Eden with a shock of black hair.  We've each nested into a group of friends we lean hard into, whom we tell truths to, whom we need and love.  We clear our heads at the side of the ocean.  We sit in the park and spill stories, drink tea, paint.  We've built a family here, an extended family, a whole life.

And living here we have known motion, constant motion; we've climbed aboard planes often, dragged ourselves through time zones, teared when we've had to leave mother, father, cousins, sisters, brothers, smells of earthy woods, thunderstorms, and the place of  childhood again and again.

So much heart pull in this bi-costal love.

And now, for the first time in a decade, we've decided to step out of this constant tug-of-war.  Though, of course, we will just be changing the direction of the pull.

I'm having a hard time absorbing the implications of this change.  My mind spins with the logistics, school districts, house listings, a departure date -- all of the transitions that lie ahead.  I feel giddy, dizzy, wound tightly with to-do's, and unable, yet, to feel the pain of our departure.