We spent the weekend away with friends this last weekend. I am desperate this time of year to distract myself from the rain and damp and cold. I’m eager to get out in the garden, but the muddy soil, the lack of sunlight, and cool temperatures are not helping. Our daily walks are often shortened by the rain pelting down.
We took the ferry to get off the island, of course, and spent our time during the crossing in our favourite dog lounge. The rest of the 2 hour drive was mostly on the motorway, with the exception of a short 15 minute diversion through rural countryside and a cute small village.
Immediately I was assessing whether I would like to live in that village. Was there an interesting shop that sold coffee? (Yes, but no other visible commerce). Was there a pub? (Obviously). Was there a village green? (Not sure). Were the houses and gardens tidy and well-maintained? (Yes, indeed). In fact, the size of most houses and lots looked far beyond our income bracket. Many had large horse paddocks, and gated driveways. The houses and grounds were quite large. There was a sign recruiting for this season’s cricket team. So, yes a nice place to live but maybe too nice, and it didn’t have a rail line for connections to the bigger cities, so probably not a place we’d chose to live.
This reflexive tick-box exercise got me wondering yet again about my constant assessment of other places to live. What IS that all about? I’m generally happy where we are, but I incessantly check out every village and town we drive through to consider its living potential for us in some imagined future life. I enjoy thinking through what it would be like to live somewhere else: imagining how I would move around this other space. Where are the grocery stores and the coffee shops? Where would we go for our daily walks? How would we get to the nearest big city? Does the village architecture please me? Are there mature trees around? Are there lots of flowers in the gardens and daffodils at this time of year on the verges? Is there a community hall and a pub that looks to serve fresh food?
These are all questions we asked when we were deciding where to live, with many others as well. And indeed, we have already found a place that offers many of the above features. And yet still I wonder, always wonder, what if we lived there, or maybe there, or what about there?
Whilst considering the above question, I looked back at previous essays from around this time of year, and lo and behold, I am often in a bit of an early spring funk. (Am I the only one who says funk?) I can’t remember if this used to occur when I lived in California, although I do remember being impatient for the temperatures to warm up. Sunshine was intermittently around, just not the warmth making shorts and sandals a reasonable possibility.
Last year at this time I spent a few weeks diving into the rabbit hole of a trove of old letters from my parents lives before moi. The year before last we had moved in “temporarily” with Pete’s mum and I was adjusting to living full-time with an 87-year old in a two-bedroom bungalow. At that time, it was a lifesaving-mental health requirement that set me off writing again. A few months later this Substack was born.
The languishing feeling recurs every March, although it takes on different guises every year, and still catches me by surprise. This year it is an ache to get in the garden, a need to shed a few extra pounds that have crept in over the winter, and most of all a yearning for the kind of energy and spirit that bubbles up excitedly when I wake to a bright sunny day.
In contrast to my moods, the island is overflowing with sunny yellow daffodils, and that has been a tonic when we drive back and forth across the Island several times a week. These harbingers of sunshine are planted purposefully in some places, but have grown with wild abandon and enthusiasm in others. There is one stretch of dappled woodland road that is green with new grass, budding oaks, and thousands of daffodils lining a half-mile stretch that makes me involuntarily smile and glow inside every time we take that route.
We have had a few brief days of sunshine in March and we scurry out and point our faces towards the sun. If we can, we find a place to walk in the full sunshine, soaking it up in our bodies too. Sometimes we indulge in a little breakfast treat at a cafe next to the beach. I keep trying to hang on to those days, but I have to stretch my memory back a week or two sometimes to remember, instead of just a couple of days.
Those daffodils are like a taunt too, as I am still waiting for the 120 bulbs I planted late last spring to show me their colours. In fact, most of them have not even pushed their shoots through the topsoil yet. I’m guessing they will not look exactly like what their label showed. I move back and forth from moments of sun and joy, and then the grey rain and doubt. Am I in the right place? Did I make a mistake moving here, choosing a completely different life than the one where I had been merrily rolling along for the previous 20 years?
Yet, I can’t imagine what the last 14 years would have been like if I hadn’t decided to pack up everything and move abroad for an unknown amount of time. I can’t imagine missing out on what I have been enjoying and learning and growing into all this time.
Learning to belong somewhere completely different. ALL the travel. Pushing through the awkward discomfort of a new place balancing with the delight of discovering the unexpected gems: seeing slanted morning light on stone buildings in an old city, the smells of damp vegetation along a coastal bluff, the laughter of gathered colleagues meeting for evening drinks in our English hometown, in Lyon, or Vienna. The exquisite joy when reuniting with my beloved family and longtime friends. These experiences have filled up my soul the last 14 years.
It’s a yo-yo life between pushing out to the new and returning back to familiar ground. And there is the twist: the longer I am away from what used to be familiar, the less familiar it is. And the more time I spend in the ‘new place’ the more it becomes familiar and I crave another new place. Perhaps that is the source of my search for newness yet again?
Or perhaps my body is only getting ready for the rebirth of the Spring season and I’m just a bit impatient for the budding out of new growth, the warmth of the higher solar trajectory and the promise of new life. Maybe for today I’ll try to be content with where I am, be thankful for the many blessings of my life, as it is, and TRY to smile at the sprinkling of rain that just restarted after an earlier glimpse of sun!
Thank you once again for reading all the way to the end!
Do you have a March slump? Do you get impatient for the season to change?
Do you imagine living in other places? What are YOUR criteria for the perfect place to live, real or imaginary?
Have you taken a mid-life course change?
I always love to hear your experiences and thoughts.
Meantime, it’s April in three days and I hope the new month brings exactly what you want! See you next week.
xoxo Sabrina
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This hit a cord except I look at houses rather than new places. I will peruse real estate listings for the time I am able to sell my condo with its HOA and move into a single family home. I imagine where I would put furniture, which bedroom would be a library or guestroom, how would the garden accommodate raised beds or fruit trees, and how would entertaining and daily living look in the space. My partner calls me "real estate girl" because of this obsession. Then I realize I should slow down and appreciate where I am now. Savor it. Create memories in it before moving on. If I were with you on your jaunts to different villages, I'd be looking at the homes while you took in the entire geography!
Thanks for another provocative post.
I had the opposite reaction to some of my homes. I said about our first NYC and first Washington, D.C. apartment that the only way I'd leave was in a box. But each time a welcome change and a better opportunity came up. Each time we landed in a better place. Now I don't say that anymore. Like others have mentioned, I try to appreciate where I live and the beautiful surroundings at this very minute. I feel so grateful to inhabit each place I've lived and live.
Which is not to say that I've stopped wishing and fantasizing. I'm now scheming about how to trade our or buy an apartment in this building on a higher floor with a view of the plaza. (I'm putting that thought in the universe.) When I get too desirous, I remind myself that even if that never happens, I love where we live now and am very happy here.
To another point about feeling kind of cranky before spring appears, when I lived in New Hampshire I began to feel out of sorts, off kilter, expectant, and fidgety in early March when the temperature rarely topped 32 and snow covered the ground. I finally realized that in California where I'd spent the last 20 years spring was on its way. My body had a circadian reaction to the arrival of spring.
Looking forward to next week's post.