ch-ch-ch- changes

I’m sitting here on a quiet, gray Sunday–the only downside of living in the Bay Area, as far as I can tell, is that we don’t have a proper fall, a burst of color and beauty that accompanies overcast skies and chillier temperatures–and thinking not just about the change of seasons, but about the changes that have come into my life more recently and in the past year.

There’s a lot that is different.

I marvel at how much is changing all at once, however. Like the job thing, and the haircut and color thing (such that each time I look in the mirror can be a bit of a surprise), and the friendship thing, and the relationship thing (lots of reckoning with Andy lately, getting clear, making the relationship more of a priority), the adopting a cat thing (I’m still crossing my fingers on that one, though, hoping and praying that this little fuzzball can come with us) and the living situation thing. 

The living situation thing–I hadn’t mentioned much about it given everything else that has been going on. But we are letting go of being house-sitters, and have found a cute little bungalow for rent that should accommodate enough space for us to both have an office area. It was a hard decision to come by in some ways, because all of our things are in storage and it would be so easy to just keep them there and continue to drift from place to place, save up money for rent or for being self-employed.

But there are other things about house-sitting that have been more difficult, perhaps the biggest being that Alameda has always felt like home. It’s this little island in the Bay Area next to Oakland. Most people haven’t heard of it. It has a low crime rate, plenty of free parking, and two little downtown areas with local businesses. The rent is cheaper than the rest of the Bay Area. Even if I bring commute costs into the equation, one can get a larger space in a nicer neighborhood with fewer parking hassles for less money living in Alameda, than living in San Francisco (or Berkeley. Or Oakland, for that matter).

I often describe Alameda as “very Mayberry.” The fire department comes out if the elderly have heart attacks, and when that happens I have personally witnessed as neighbors poked their wee heads around the front door to see why in the world they heard sirens. It’s not an every day occurrence. And the Alameda Free Library is one of my favorite writing spots, with a great collection of books and such nice lighting and comfy chairs. And the crew at Peet’s know my drink when I come in, and Dan’s Produce has fresh, in-season produce that’s so vibrant it feels like a treat to eat a salad, and Ole’s Waffle House makes the best blueberry-topped waffles ever, and the beachfront in Alameda is my favorite place for photoshoots.

Alameda is home.

We’ve lived in Oakland and Italy and Berkeley/Albany (California, not New York) in the past year, and no place has felt quite like Alameda. I’m excited to head home.

I’m excited to create a home, actually.

Andy and I were talking this weekend about how this is really the first time that we will be moving and creating a home. Our first move-in experience was so god-awful. Imagine–arriving with a truck of your things on move-in day and finding carpets half-torn up, piles of tools everywhere, broken windows, a leaking roof…no joke, man. And then to be there two months and have them announce that they are selling the place, and someone new is coming in, jacking up the rent and replacing the foundation, wiring, plumbing, roof, etc., while we live there?

No, sir.

So the next place we were moving into felt like flight. Getting away from the place that had been so awful and putting that experience behind us.

Except that we had great difficulty putting it behind us–we were fighting constantly during that time. It was insanity. Every little trigger either of us had about one another was exacerbated by having to move twice in one year, plus the time spent living in a house that was frigid cold (due to those broken windows) and had a leaky roof.

It was insanity.

And from that insanity, we moved to a different kind of insanity–living in a place where the neighbors below us, we would later learn, were upset that the owner had rented to us without checking first to see if they would like to occupy the top floor apartment. They set out from Night #1 to make things difficult, coming home loud at 2am screaming outside of our bedroom window and turning up the television. We went down and talked to them, but didn’t notify the landlord that first time, thinking Hey, everyone makes mistakes, right? Surely they didn’t mean it…. Then they did the exact same thing on Night #2, at which point we did notify the landlord and thus commenced the next year and a half of our lives, living above people who watched Run’s House and Paris Hilton’s My New BFF at top volume while the owner failed to do anything about it. Complicating the matter was the issue of the two very adorable–but very excitable Chihuahuas who were adopted by the people in the house directly adjacent to us, and who began barking their heads off if they smelled anyone walking past the house. There was also the house behind us that was packed with people coming and going at all hours, like Gabe who parked underneath our bedroom window and then headed out at 2am, revving his souped-up Honda muffler before pulling away, or his brother who got up at 5am and let his motorcycle warm up at high throttle (which set off barking from their Pekingese, who was never once hushed). Talking about the issue or making requests did not make a difference (other than positing us as anal-retentive among the neighbors, who had lived with this kind of clamor for years, so who were we to question it?)

So, um, yeah, that wasn’t fantastic. The opportunity to house-sit in a new neighborhood, in a quiet house, to save money on rent in the interim, was a dream. I still remember how, a week after moving into the the first house-sit, I walked into the house with Andy and stopped suddenly and said, “Oh my gosh. I just realized that I walked in here feeling tense, listening to see if I could hear the neighbors downstairs. But there are no neighbors downstairs!”

On some level, house-sitting has provided a feeling of adventure, a sense of living a vagabond lifestyle. It actually feels good to not have so much “stuff.” Other than computers and clothes, none of the “stuff” here is ours. There’s a lightness to traveling that way. It’s been really neat to explore different parts of the Bay Area, and it has been a blessing on so many levels to experience living in places that are quiet and calm. It has been a blessing to save money. It has been a blessing to have made the space to travel to Italy this past summer without worrying about paying double rent for a place there and a place here.

But now, we are moving and we get this opportunity to create a home, really for the first time since we moved in together.

There was this moment this weekend that might not seem like much to someone else, but it meant a lot to me. We were out and about and Andy spotted this dish set that was on sale and suggested that we get it for the house. “I never really liked the other set,” he said, “and this is so inexpensive.” We’d been walking around that day with the express purpose of noticing what we might need for the new place, given that we gave a lot away before putting stuff in storage, and we’ve also been talking a lot about making our new place a real home. We want to let go of the furniture that we bought just because it was cheap and worked in the moment, and replace it with items that will last. We want to make the home more of an investment.

The moment when he turned to me and said this, my first thought was that we didn’t really have to have this dish set; it would be one more thing to move; etc., etc. And then I just said, “Yes. Let’s do it.” The set was very simple–bright yellow plates, bowls, mug. Cheerful. Vibrant. It hit me that my partner had said he’d never really liked the other set, that he’d probably agreed with whatever other dishes we’d found just to avoid another argument, and I was reminded in that moment of all of the petty arguments we’d had when we first moved in together, about this bedspread or that bedspread, or how this needed to go here and that needed to go there, and how we had been under so much pressure and stress and we’d both been wanting to feel powerful so we had pursued artificial power–power over each other, power over the decision-making process. I was reminded of how I had felt scared of moving in with someone and how I’d defaulted to control and pushed for my way, and how sometimes he’d pushed back for his way, and then we’d had a fight.

I just said “Yes” to the new dishes, because they weren’t at all expensive and I could see that my partner, this man that I love so much,  was thinking about mornings spent drinking tea from a yellow mug while he sketched. I shared his vision for that. I want him to drink from a yellow mug while he sketches, to eat cereal from a bright happy bowl, and to set the table when we have people over thinking about these cheerful plates. 

In another moment, while talking about how we had fought so much back in the beginning, I said, “We were under so much stress. And we probably just weren’t ready.”

“Yeah,” he said, “we probably moved in together a little too soon.”

 I threw my arms around him and pulled him into a hug. “But I don’t want to say that,” I said. “I felt like a million-gazillion dollars when you asked me to move in with you. I felt so loved. And I’m so glad that we’re together. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

I nuzzled my head against his chest and he rested his chin on my head and his arms encircled mine, and there we were, standing in the middle of a dish aisle, eyes-closed, remembering and letting go, while together, we will now create this home.