Skip to main content

Moving. Again.

I started this blog back in 2007 sitting on an empty floor, in an empty living room in Albany, CA, my laptop perched on a cardboard box filled with our stuff. I started writing this blog to distract me from the sadness of leaving. I was mourning because of what I was leaving behind. I even knew that the things I was leaving---classmates, student housing, my Campbell Hall office---weren't permanent. My friends were moving on, too. Heck, my office was about to be torn down. Berkeley, CA was going to move on even if I didn't. I knew this. But it didn't make it less sad. So I started writing, and I haven't stopped.

And here we are again. Another house full of moving boxes. But this time I'm not mourning alone. It hit Owen, too. Owen found an artifact of our old familiar life, one of the old blankets that used to be a permanent fixture of our couch, lying on the floor of the closet. We sat together in the darkness on the blanket, and we cried, together. We cried for the friends we're leaving behind. We cried for the familiar life that will now change. We cried because, as Owen put it, our house feels so empty and it all feels like it's happening too soon.

But it's time to go. A nice couple made an offer on our house Sunday, we countered, and they accepted. It's their house now and it's time for the Johnsons to start anew in our house that's waiting for us in Cambridgeport. It's time to start my new job, make new discoveries, start the year at a new school for the boys, plant new roots, and Erin to restart her career. Also, because it's academia, there are friends there, from Berkeley even!

It's too soon, but at the same time, too long in coming. We've known about this day for a long time now. Jeez, since April. So while it feels too soon, it's also just about time.



Comments

Amy P said…
Hugs to you and Owen and Erin and Marcus. Enjoy your epic road trip and the time together. Safe travels to you all. Since the trip falls between Owen and Marcus's birthdays, I imagine they truly will get to celebrate birth-month with all the friends you visit along the way. I'm so excited for you to stop in the Quad Cities on your journey.
Leah Bennett said…
Beautiful. Moving is always so bittersweet... as are most things in life I suppose. Hope you are settling in a little in your new place!

Popular posts from this blog

back-talk begins

me: "owen, come here. it's time to get a new diaper" him, sprinting down the hall with no pants on: "forget about it!" he's quoting benny the rabbit, a short-lived sesame street character who happens to be in his favorite "count with me" video. i'm turning my head, trying not to let him see me laugh, because his use and tone with the phrase are so spot-on.

The Long Con

Hiding in Plain Sight ESPN has a series of sports documentaries called 30 For 30. One of my favorites is called Broke  which is about how professional athletes often make tens of millions of dollars in their careers yet retire with nothing. One of the major "leaks" turns out to be con artists, who lure athletes into elaborate real estate schemes or business ventures. This naturally raises the question: In a tightly-knit social structure that is a sports team, how can con artists operate so effectively and extensively? The answer is quite simple: very few people taken in by con artists ever tell anyone what happened. Thus, con artists can operate out in the open with little fear of consequences because they are shielded by the collective silence of their victims. I can empathize with this. I've lost money in two different con schemes. One was when I was in college, and I received a phone call that I had won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas. All I needed to d

Reader Feedback: Whither Kanake in (white) Astronomy?

Watching the way that the debate about the TMT has come into our field has angered and saddened me so much. Outward blatant racism and then deflecting and defending. I don't want to post this because I am a chicken and fairly vulnerable given my status as a postdoc (Editor's note: How sad is it that our young astronomers feel afraid to speak out on this issue? This should make clear the power dynamics at play in this debate) .  But I thought the number crunching I did might be useful for those on the fence. I wanted to see how badly astronomy itself is failing Native Hawaiians. I'm not trying to get into all of the racist infrastructure that has created an underclass on Hawaii, but if we are going to argue about "well it wasn't astronomers who did it," we should be able to back that assertion with numbers. Having tried to do so, well I think the argument has no standing. At all.  Based on my research, it looks like there are about 1400 jobs in Hawaii r