Month: September 2016

Here is the link. It shows the main part of the house and the bathroom, which are now pretty much done. It isn’t really clear, but gives a good idea of what it looks like.

If you want to look at the first video, before it was finished, here is the link

How much life is brought and how much is left behind?

Before I moved I gave a lot of thought to ways that my life would be different after the move and ways that it would be the same. In other words, how much of life itself is brought along and how much has to be left behind. It is really kind of amazing how much of life is actually brought along, but these are the parts of life we tend to take for granted.

For example, I have calendars and books that I use to organize my life. They were packed last and unpacked fairly early, so I’ve continued to do that part of my life basically the same. And that is a comfort, because it is familiar. The computer goes along with that. All the files that I used to make menus and keep track of other things came right along with us, so there was very little disruption in those sorts of activities.

Other things are even more basic. I brought my toothbrush and other toiletries along and set them up on different shelves in the bathroom. But the ritual remained the same. I comb my hair with the same comb after I wash it with the same shampoo and wash myself with the same body wash and towel off with the same towel.  And I weigh myself on the same scale and see the same stupid weight I saw back in Chetek!

I discovered quite soon that piano practicing wasn’t so much about the piano as it was about the music, which came along. So I may be playing on a different piano, but the experience is just about the same, because I’m practicing the same pieces and wearing the same “piano glasses” to do it.

So we do bring a lot of our life itself along when we move.

What didn’t come along?

What didn’t come along was mostly people – piano students, people at the senior center, people at church. These people were not my life, but part of my life revolved around each of them, whether it was a specific person’s piano lesson or a specific person coming up to say a word to me at the piano during Friday Salad Bar at the senior center.

I would not call these people my friends. Our relationships were not that close. So I didn’t know how much I would miss them. But I do, not so much because of them specifically, but because my life was built around those things that I did with or for them. I enjoyed my piano students, but there were many that I found frustrating. Still, the time I spent with them gave a small measure of meaning to my life.  And when you put them all together, it gave a lot of meaning to my life.

I think what I’m saying was that what I brought with me was the mundane things of life – the things that are done pretty much as a matter of course, and give life a comforting structure. But the things that got left behind were the things that gave my life meaning. Realizing this helps me see how much sense it makes that it is taking so long to feel meaning in my life again. I still only have a handful of people around which a meaningful activity occurs. I have 4 piano students. I have one choir director, along with many choir students that I don’t know anything about yet.

But life is gradually filling. I met a senior center director yesterday and that encounter might lead to more meaningful activities. And so I continue to fill my life with new versions of that which was left behind.

Note: I’ll be writing the rest of this narrative elsewhere.

Note: I just realized yesterday that this was supposed to start on October 1. Oh, well, it gives me extra time, I guess. 🙂

When the reality hits

Don made such a big deal about getting his Tennessee drivers license. He waited forever – like about 4 or 5 months, but that had something to do with the fact that if he didn’t have a Wisconsin DL, he wasn’t a Wisconsin resident and, therefore, couldn’t have a Wisconsin nursing license. I’m not sure why that mattered, since I’m pretty sure he has a TN RN license now. At any rate, it was a big deal to him. I didn’t get it at first, because I’d gotten my TN driver’s license months prior to that, and didn’t remember it being a very big deal.

But then I realized that doing this made the move REAL. We were REALLY Tennessee residents and not Wisconsin residents. We are, of course, still in that transition stage where people always ask “Where are you from?” But we are on the road to the time when no one will ask and we will think of ourselves as being from Tennessee, but originally from Wisconsin.

I had two moments that made the move REAL. The first was when Erica had her baby. My first thought was “When will I be able to go over and see her and the new baby?” This was followed, a couple seconds later, by, “Oh, yeah. I live in Tennessee. I won’t be popping over to Shakopee any time soon. Bummer.”

The second was kind of weird, and actually harder. It was the day I realized it was Red Cedar Choir rehearsal day and I wasn’t there. I really hadn’t realized what an important part of my life playing piano for that choir had become.  I really never got close to any of the people in all the years I was there – I hardly knew anyone’s name, even. But it was a big part of my identity and being without that brought home the seriousness of the decision to make the move to Tennessee, maybe more than anything else.

I’m still wrestling with this. I joined a similar choir here in the Tri-cities area – an adult choir associated with the Tri-cities symphony. But I’m singing, so it is a lot different than being the accompanist.

Anyway, I guess my point is that the reality of the move hits now and then. And the rest of the time, I just enjoy the good things and ignore the rest!

Finding a church home

Thinking back over my life, I do remember having a really hard time finding a church home one other time. That was when we were in our early 20’s and had moved up to Rhinelander for Don to do his internship at a large nursing home there.  Before the move we’d been very involved in a church that was quite similar to the one Don had grown up in.

First we tried a couple Baptist churches, but we weren’t used to Baptist theology and felt a bit uncomfortable there. Then we tried another and kind of liked it until Easter rolled around and we found that they didn’t celebrate Easter (they said they celebrate the resurrection every Sunday.) But we were only in Rhinelander about 9 months, so it wasn’t too bad.

After we were done there, we moved to a place where we knew a couple of people (Chetek) and they went to the Baptist church there, so we just went there. It was better when we knew people that were attending. Actually a LOT better.

After that, we were local for the next 36 years, so when we changed churches, it was because we knew people at the new church and wanted to be there.

Now we are in a town where we don’t know anyone, so we can’t go to a church where they go. While it was very nice that Amy had the pastor of the West Hills Christian Church come and meet Don and invite him, that church didn’t end up feeling like “home” to us. The way they worship, and particularly the music, was just so different that we just couldn’t stay. We gave it a good try – about 4 1/2 months.

One of the problems had been that is was rather small and there weren’t any people much like us. I particularly didn’t feel like I fit in – none of the women made any attempts to get to know me at all, even the pastor’s wife. Plus, the fact that it is small meant that we were the only new people, and they don’t really have a way to help new people fit in.

So we decided to try somewhere bigger, then see if there were other people there that were new, as well.  We also picked a church that seemed like it would be a bit more what we are used to – a non-denominational, evangelical church called Fellowship Chapel. I really like the music and finally feel like I’ve truly been able to worship. We also enjoy the fact that there is more age diversity – the first church was pretty much all old people and Fellowship Chapel has people of all ages. We happen to go to the contemporary service, so there are fewer old people and more families and young people, which we really enjoy.

Is this “the church?” Who knows? I didn’t like the sermon this week – I thought is was totally devoid of grace. But, then again, I’ve really liked the other sermons, so instead of giving up and going elsewhere, I’m going to try to get a chance to communicate my concerns with the pastor, if that is even possible.

I know I’m not going to find the perfect church, so I’m mostly looking for a place where I don’t feel “odd” and where I can really worship. I also want a place I’m comfortable going alone, since Don has to sleep all day every other Sunday as it is his third 12 hour day in a row.

I was looking around at people at church yesterday and thinking, “Are these people going to be my new friends?” That is a big reason for wanting to find a church soon – it is a place to find friends of like mind. But finding a place to truly worship in the main reason and I think we are headed in the right direction.

But it is hard because we have no experience at it. So hopefully, we’ll never have to do it again!

So, how about his weather?

I was raised knowing that talking about the weather was trivial. It was something done by people who didn’t have anything “important” to say to others.

Nonetheless, when you have no job, no place to be, no people in your life other than the person you are always talking to, it is hard to find topics to discuss, particularly if you are try to avoid making comparisons with “back home.” So the weather seems to be a fairly common thing to discuss and, therefore, think about a lot.

Truth be told, the weather was also a lot of the reason we decided to trade our life in snowy Wisconsin for a new life in green and temperate Tennessee. So we were actually interested in the weather here on a day to day basis.  But we made the mistake of moving here right before the most unpleasant season down South – the summer.

While Don complained constantly about the heat and humidity, I took solace in the comments of locals regarding the fact that “this is a really hot year, not at all like normal.” I’m still hoping that this “really hot” summer is followed by an equally “really warm” winter to even things out. As Kylene pointed out to me when she moved to Savannah, the difference isn’t the extremes, but the fact that the extremes stay for a longer period of time than elsewhere. So, while we did get hot and humid weather in Wisconsin on occasion, it was nothing compared to day after day after sweltering day of 90 plus temperatures with accompanying high humidity. But we should be able to notice a more positive difference in February and March, when temperatures are moderating here while the cold and snowy and dismal days continue on and on and depressingly on in northwest Wisconsin.

It was a tough summer to endure, though, and I hope our bodies get more acclimated to the continuous heat in a few years. Our electric bill was quite high due to air conditioner usage one month but we’ve been making more use of fans after that one enormous utility bill shocker.

I know there is a lot more to a place than the weather, but when that is why you moved somewhere and when there is not a lot going on in your new life, it can take center stage. I’m looking forward to the passing of this phenomenon as I get more engaged in the important stuff of life.

(Amy suggest writing for 31 days in a row about the move. I think I probably have enough to say to fill 31 days of posts. We’ll see.  Maybe in the process, I’ll get better perspective about it all.)

1. The excitement wears thin pretty quickly.

          I counted the days until it was the day of the move. I was so excited to be leaving Chetek. Part of it, of course, was that Don had gone first, but part of it was that when I make up my mind to do something, I want to just get busy doing it. And this wasn’t possible with the move, because there were so many things we had to do first.

         But the day finally came and I had the rental car picked up and packed to the gills and everything else stored away and I was ready to leave town. To tell the truth, it was pretty anti-climactic. There wasn’t anyone there to bid me safe journey. I just hopped in the car (without my Sherlock) and took off south.

         It was indeed exciting to finally drive up to the new place and see all that Don had accomplished. It was a new challenge to figure out how we were going to live together in this unfinished space we were now calling home. The weather was more pleasant. The sky seemed bluer and the sun brighter. I was finally here!

         But that was first day excitement. Some of that excitement was worn off after one night of sleeping in a very uncomfortable twin bed with a very old mattress and stretched out springs. More of that excitement wore off when I began to realize just how much was left to do before we would have anything resembling a house. And the rest of it wore off as I settled into a life where there was nobody except Don who recognized me and talked to me. It became extraordinarily lonely in a very short time.

          I’ll admit I didn’t expect that. I had no idea how it would feel to be in a place where I had no friends or even acquaintances, no job, no role to play in society as a whole. I was totally adrift. Had I known how long it would take to even begin to rebuild my life, I may have turned around and gone back up north. But I didn’t know. I still don’t know, but I’ve come to grips with the fact that it is a very slow process. One doesn’t just wake up with a full roster of piano students or with schools calling for accompanists. Yes, it is possible to find opportunities to teach and to accompany, but starting again as an unknown has proven to be a huge challenge.

          I am now taking solace in the quote about a good life not being the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away (or something like that.) I wasn’t having any of those breath-taking moments in Chetek. And I have them frequently here. I don’t, of course, live in one huge moment of exhilaration, but the moments are there – moments that confirm to me that this is where I belong. I believe the rest will fall into place in time. And being absolutely delighted with where I am makes the process much more bearable, if not speedier.

         I love eastern Tennessee and south west Virginia more than I even expected. I feel so at home in the rolling hills and mountains where flowering shrubs bloom and bloom and hummingbirds visit my porch and the catalpa tree shades my backyard seating. And I love the people – kind, easy-going people who are not ashamed to openly serve God.  I feel like I’ve come home to where I belong. Now if I could just get some people to realize I’m here!