Mietzke's POST Holden Adventure

We are starting to settle down a little in Santa Barbara. We road tripped across the western United States for the month of June. We saw the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, spent four days with my grandmother in Arizona, went to Colorado and spent a week in the mountains with my extended family and then went to see my grandmother and Aunties in Denver. It was a whirlwind with a wide expanse of sky and space and many different types of beauty. We then drove back to Washington and spent a little time in Tacoma before heading down to Santa Barbara.

I flew down to start my new job ten days before my family and stayed at my folks place which overlooks the water. It felt like a combination of a vacation and like I was living someone else’s life. I started my new job the day after I arrived and was able to meet several of the children who will be in my class and spend time with some of the other teachers. The two weeks of camp were a lot of fun and I was reminded at how much I love being with little ones on a daily basis, and how much I love the Waldorf curriculum. My mom and I also were able to spend some good time together and as a welcome to your first week in Santa Barbara, my sister in law, Christie bought tickets to the Indigo Girls concert.

I got the keys to our new place the day I flew in and visited it, in all of its empty glory, several times that week watering the plants and trying to remember what in the world we put in storage before we went to Holden. I couldn’t even remember what our dishes looked like.

My parents went out of town on business then my friend Karen and my new God child Jonah came to visit and we spent a few days together which was really nice. We went out to dinner and went grocery shopping and practical shopping and talked about everything under the sun. It felt so nice and familiar. She left on Sunday and on Monday I had dinner with the early childhood faculty who are an amazing group of women. Then on Tuesday I spent some time with Christie at the beach and got a call about 2:00 saying that my family was only two hours away!

Dave and his parents had caravanned down from Washington with three girls, a cat, a dog, a moving van a truck pulling a trailer and our minivan packed to the gills. When they arrived we ate burritos from Cuca’s and then began to move boxes and beds and furniture. Some neighbors offered to help and Jason made a trek down the hill to help and by 10:00 that evening all of the boxes were in the house. We all went to sleep at my folks place that night and had good showers! The next morning we began the setting up process and Dave’s folks were a great help! By the next evening we had places in our house for everyone to sleep which was a blessing! I was still teaching at the Waldorf camps so I was gone in the morning and came home to packing. It was overwhelming.

Dave’s daughter Rachel drove down with everybody and stayed with us for a few days so we got some good time at the beach and while I was teaching they all went to Downtown Santa Barbara which is a fun place to walk and shop. It was really nice to have Rachel, Mary, and Dave with us for the first part of our journey.

So it is a week later and we are a little more settled. We have even planted new flowers and have figured out most of the spacing for furniture. I love our back yard and Mr. Kitty is getting a taste of the outdoors with a fully fenced (twelve feet tall) back yard. It feels like an extension of the house and the door is always open. We have blocked all of the holes and he is loving being able to be out of doors and we are glad that he has a safe place to enjoy it.

I am so happy to be sleeping in my own bed. A good bed makes all of the difference in how you see things in the morning!

Dave has started his search for jobs, which having just done it myself, takes awhile, but he put together a beautiful portfolio and seems ready to go forth. He has a made a few connections already so it is a game of weight and see.

Generally we are doing really well. We are missing Holden and Tacoma a lot, but we will all find our niches here, we will make friends and hopefully have visitors from time to time. Transition is difficult and often lonely but there you go…

I woke up this morning sadder than I have been for a very long time, the reality of this move sinking in. Last night there were strange nighttime sounds in a strange bed, and I woke with tears streaming, missing the sound of copper creek and the moon cradled in the saddle of copper mountain and buckskin. I miss the fresh mountain smell and the sound of the creek and the chimes singing through the valley at seven thirty in the morning welcoming the day. We spent the day with family and I am afraid I was not much for company. I just wanted to sleep off the weariness from transition and packing and put on the new outfit of adventure, but this ache I have, in my chest, for the faces I already miss and for home weighs heavy on me.

I have been keeping these emotions close to my chest for the last few weeks in the name of productivity but now find myself a bit lost. I know the bitter sweet taste won’t last long but it has a sting while it is here.

I have a big pile of stuff to go through and a storage unit to sort before we make the trek to California and I am overwhelmed by the clutter of things that I had forgotten about. They are having prayer around the cross tonight and I hope someone puts in a good word for our family. We are all pretty broken up about leaving as the reality that this is not just an extended “out” sets in. I think it is not just Holden, but also leaving Tacoma again that weighs heavy. So many goodbyes. I know that as soon as we find a place to live and begin unpacking in our next home that these emotions will settle but it is a little hard to picture right now.