Settling In

The last few weeks have been busy ones. There is always so much to do after a move, and we still have many boxes left to unpack. We have a lot more space around us now, almost enough to go for a true farm theme. I laugh at the thought of this, because deep down inside, I know I am a city girl. Chickens are enough of a farm for me. Rather than eyeing the terrain and placing goat quarters and horse stalls, I am conjuring up visions of Christo and Jeanne-Claude style art installations. Hopelessly useless!

Our oldest has enough space on our property to ride her bike around, and our little one has some fancy, new, all terrain sandals, which she capably straps on everyday to go exploring about. There are nice hilly walks in either direction from our gate that seem to satisfy our dogs, and our cats are quite content with the new wilderness to explore. My husband and I have toasted to another page turned in our now sixteen year adventure together, and so life goes on.

It has been interesting to move within the same little town that we moved to six years ago. It was so foreign then. I had no sense of direction, harldy any command of the language and, of course, I did not know a soul. Moving again has made me realize how much a part of the community we have become. Now I can chat it up with the locals, I know where almost every unnamed dirt road leads to, and we have had a rather steady stream of friends drop in to check out our new stomping grounds.

What is interesting is as I look out on the same hillsides I have been living among for so long, everything that is so familiar is still foreign. I am still a guest here. The landscape that surrounds my home is made of soil trod on by the ancestors of a culture that will never be my own. And as foreign as it will remain to me, so am I to this place. Always a Gringa, and a strange one at that.