adjusting

Yesterday I drove past my street twice, neither time being prepared for it to pop up so soon. I also overshot the turn off a major road on my way back from the grocery store, and though I then had to get onto a really trafficky one, I was still able to get home within just a few minutes. This is a small town, no doubt about it. And as it turns out, all the separate places I've been to previously aren't too far apart; on my drive to work, three of them proved to be connected; on my return from shopping, others, too, lined up right in a row. This is a small town, and by the end of the day yesterday, I was feeling like I might jump out of my skin over it.

I had planned, after work, to take a walk down University Ave and see what all downtown has to offer. But when the time came, it struck me: it's your second day here, and you'll have seen the whole town! I was paralyzed with worry that I'd see ALL of the new place in just one walk. So I went out to do errands, saving the leisurely stroll through town for a time when the panic in my heart wouldn't ruin it.

Holding off was a good choice. I was terribly tired, moving having been exhausting, and today proved a better time to get to know my new surroundings. It's true, in one very short (less-than-ten-minute) walk, I was able to stop by the bank, check out the offerings at the classic-movie movie theater, and arrive early to meet friends for drinks. Afterward, it took three or four minutes to find the indie theater, and after I left the show I saw (Gonzo, which I highly recommend), it took maybe six minutes to wind my way through the blocks back home. But it struck me, as I walked on unfamiliar streets but with no hesitation about where to turn, that it may be frightening to have the whole town so completely at my fingertips, but it's also delightful. I can walk or bike to anything I want to do, and that is very freeing. As well, there is so much to look at. The low-lying houses, though mostly of a similar size, range from craftsman style to New England cottage to Nordic A-frame to basic modern Californian. Their yards, though not all that varied, drip with roses and hydrangeas, are lined by the joyful spherical bursts of the lavendar or white flowers of Andean lilies. Some of them, perhaps to avoid watering in the dry climate, have no grass and instead are filled with stones, some the size of the pebbles I like to call wishing stones and throw into the ocean with a kiss, others fist-size and bulging. Though cold and dry in appearance, these rocky yards seem innovative and logical and definitive of this place being of a different sort than I am used to. And that, I know, is something I live for—the experience of being amidst newness, of coming to know new places and ways of life, of really becoming part of surroundings that at first might seem undesirable or even inhospitable to me in some way.