but really...

I'm sitting here this morning wondering whether I want to talk about something light and happy, like "The daffodils are starting to poke out from their winter hideout", or "What the hey! How can it be Daylight Saving Time again already?", or if I want to be real...

I often feel that reality is overrated. Don't we have enough of that in our day to day deal? I think it's OK to avoid it sometimes. I hate reality shows. Never watch them. But I do expect my friends to be real with me, and not to gloss over our conversations with pretty shiny things. That's what we have beads for. I recommend liberal use of them when reality gets too real.

So you guessed it. I'm going to spend a lot of time with beads today, and I'm going to be real with you. Sure, the daffys are actually starting to come out, and spring is so close I can sniff it on the morning air. And changing the time on my clocks twice a year irritates me enough to move to Arizona, where they don't play along with that. But really, the reality behind all that is I'm moving to Oregon. And suddenly that's bringing up all kinds of things I hadn't expected.

This move is on purpose. We mean to do this. We want to do it. We feel drawn to do it. And still, with our hoped-for moving date of June first less than three months away now, I'm finding that I feel different about Taos than I did before. While I know it's not where I want to spend the rest of my life, there have been some good, true friends here, and some damn good times here. I'm now thinking more of the things I like about it than the things I don't like. It would be easier if I could focus on the negative, but I just can't.

I did not expect to wake up crying in the middle of the night, wondering what the hell we're doing this for. I didn't expect to drive through town and drink in the views of the mountains and mesa as if I'd never seen them before. I didn't expect to feel this tugging in my heart when friends are already giving me "that look" that says they feel some of it too. And when we started to make a list of all the people we want to invite for one last party at our house in a couple of months, I really didn't expect to have over sixty names on that list. I had no idea...

I keep hearing a song in my head. Jackson Browne's "Opening Farewell". It's a sad and beautiful break-up song. And even though we are not breaking up with Taos or our friends, the farewells have already started. I'm surprised to find that I'm feeling sad, but there it is. I'm feeling sad. And in the middle of all that, I'm feeling a hopeful sort of kinship with those daffodils outside my door, as we both stick our heads out of the hard brown earth of Taos, and open into the warmth of spring and a new beginning.