This morning was the first time we awoke to our whole family, and our family alone, being here. I picked the girls up at the airport Wednesday in St. Louis. Things have been so hectic we’ve hardly had time to realize we’re here, although when Ben left yesterday morning to go back to Houston it felt like someone had taken the training wheels off my bike. We are on our own in Missouri.
Our new neighbors have done a lot to make us feel at home. One neighbor has had us over twice already for food and introductions to other neighbors. We live on the outskirts of a town of 200, in a “subdivision” of nine households. I imagine we’ll know everyone pretty well very soon. When we were contemplating a move to the mountains of Colorado last year we were told that many people moved there to be isolated from other people— not an attractive idea to us. The people who live here have come here specifically because they value community. Just as I had hoped, the girls can walk down our drive and over to the neighbor’s house to play. In Houston they never went anywhere outdoors without being in sight of an adult. They are still getting used to their new freedom and are skittish about walking down the drive alone. This morning Hayley ran down the drive ahead of me, anxious to collect her new friend to play. She rounded a blind bend and was so startled by two large vultures sitting there that she skidded, landed on her backside and came running back to me in tears.
We’re all adjusting to this, for us, new and exotic existence. Samantha, even in the house, won’t let me out of her sight, freaked out by every bug and sound she is not used to. Concrete never startled. We’re the city slickers come to town and the town, I’m happy to report, has welcomed us with open arms.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Hello Rocheport
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1 comment:
Vultures are really big and ugly. Poor Hayley. What a shock.
That is so neat about your neighbors. When we built our house here, there was only one other completed house on the street. By the end of the summer, there were seven other homes and we knew every single family. That was seven years ago.
Today, the house next door just vacated for the fourth time. The house on the corner has its sixth family living in it. The house across the street has its second family in it. The house catty-corner has had such a turnover I'm not even sure if anyone still lives there--much less who they are. The house next to it has family number six living in it. Our neighbors on the righthand side are the third family to live there.
Only one neighbor at the end of the culdesac has been here the whole seven years.
As a result, our street is very unsociable. Everyone is so nomadic and busy that there is no sense of community.
It's so sad. I think about our parents' generation and how they played cards with the neighbors and ate dinner at each others houses and all that. I think about the subdivision we lived in before and how we knew so many folks.
Greg & I don't have that here and I miss it.
It sounds like a little slice of heaven up there in Missouri. You give your neighbors a big ol' howdy for us. I'm glad the girls are "home." Great picture.
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