Back East

Our trip from Wherever, Indiana to Greenwich, Connecticut was mostly uneventful although the abrupt transition from idyllic farm to fleabag motel with casino and bar resulted in a bit of tension between the adults in the car. Not uncommon for us, we know, but it started to get pretty ugly, forcing poor Ila to intervene: “Guys, guys, it’s okay.” And to make things worse, I insisted upon driving for the very first time in the whole trip ruining P’s perfect game. I just needed to sit behind the wheel for a few hours if not to have a little power trip, then to escape from my role as the entertainer. I just couldn’t tell another story, or stick another sticker. And we were starting to run out of surprise gifts from R.A.T. So I drove, and it felt goood to be going 75 or 80 through Amish country. The hills and some Tom Waits calmed us and the prospect of a night in a better quality motel set us right. We almost blew it though with a most disgusting meal at the Dutch Pantry. The highway sign “Cooks Needed” should have been enough to turn us away, but it was hard to resist the windmill and we gave it a shot. The Dutch Pantry sells candy, creepy lifelike stuffed cats curled up in tiny cat beds and, for some bizarre reason, various Dutch Pantry cookbooks. I’m not sure why a place that served freezer-burned peas as the vegetable of the day would sell a cookbook, but they do.

The next day was our last day of driving. We pulled into my mom’s in the late afternoon the day before Thanksgiving and went head-on into Thanksgiving followed by a large family reunion with cousins, aunts, uncles, wine, beer, turkey, lasagna, more wine and not enough sleep.

It is our plan that after our trip to South America we’ll make our home in the perfect inexpensive town somewhere in the northeast. We’ll find some new fulfilling and profitable careers that leave us the time and energy to think, write, hike, play baseball, grow our own vegetables and glide blissfully into and out of our forties. The seasons will change, Ila will grow into a spunky but responsible adolescent, she’ll be best friends with her cousins and my mom will babysit regularly.

Given our plan, it has been a small concern of mine that we might arrive “back east” and just hate it. After all, we loved California. If so many of the people we love weren’t east, we might never have left. And as it turned out, we had to leave behind almost as many loved ones in California. As we drove east of Wisconsin, I started to feel the shift. The trucks were more aggressive and they drove in the left lanes. The waitresses moved a little faster and set the plates down with a little less care. Urban areas were bigger, more congested with traffic and rundown strip malls. And we started getting testier too. But, it’s been a week now, and as it turns out the east still fits.

Greenwich will never be the town for us. The once classic main street, Greenwich Avenue, has become a mini-mall of luxury stores. Woolworth’s (with lunch counter) became Saks Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Drug Store (also with lunch counter) became J Crew. There’s a Tiffany’s too, in case you need to run out and pick up a diamond or some crystal before the kids arrive home from prep school. But I’ll admit it’s a real pleasure to stroll in safety after dinner, walking a dark street, breathing cold clean air. We’ve found a temporary preschool in nearby Stamford with a student and teacher population as diverse as any we saw in Oakland, and it’s been a delight to reacquaint ourselves with the gruff exteriors and warm hearts so common out here.

We’re lucky to have a home to base ourselves in while we get a feel for things and figure out our next move. It gives us time to think, time to visit with friends and family – we have trips to Boston, Philly, New York and more planned during our stay here. And we’re finally starting to iron out the details of our trip to South America. In the meantime, we’ll be enjoying the suburban lifestyle courtesy of mom, desperately missing our California friends, and watching winter set in.