Times of change

I may hate surprises, but I'm a woman who loves change. Actually thrives on it, I might say. Of course, it's got to be positive change, and change that I've prepared for, mostly mentally. Because surprise-bad change, just like surprise in general, isn't my cup of decaf, of course.

My mami likes to note that I moved about 8 times during the 7 years I lived in Cambridge, and my husband says I've had several professional incarnations, including journalist, high school teacher, government aide, law school student, graduate student, and now professor-in-the-making (and not all in that order).

Thus, quite paradoxically, given that I'm such a creature of habit and routine (I absolutely relish my morning ritual of opening curtains to the dawn and my mirror evening ritual of closing them upon sunset), I look forward to life changes. And I have never been afraid to pursue them, come what may.

That hasn't always been a good thing, of course. The move from Cambridge to D.C. in 1986, without even the benefit (or the fore-planning) of having looked at a map, showed the over-confident, rather reckless side of this change-loving part of me. My brother's friend, who drove my rental truck, got lost somewhere in Philadelphia and my poor mom, in Puerto Rico, acted as our go-between as we separately called her from public phones on the freeway, in that Neanderthal-like, pre-cellular phone era. We finally met up somewhere in Maryland, hundreds of miles still from our destination, and what could've been an 8-hour trip, turned into a 14-hour ordeal, with me driving most of that time alone with two cats in the car.

I've learned a lot from my stupidities (and God knows there have been many!), especially those induced by this I-love-change-bring-it-on streak in me, the same one that wasn't the least intimidated when I arrived alone, at age 16, at the gates of Harvard. That part of me didn't care a fig that I was so young or that I had never really been away from home, or lived in the States for that matter (except for a one-year stay of our family in New Orleans when I was 4, when I learned to speak English).

As I tell my students, usually the best part of us is the part that also is problematic. I admire that unusual fearlessness in me (the opposite of the anxiety-ridden genes I'm constantly battling against), but it also has been my undoing sometimes. Still, that ability to charge forward, oblivious to the consequences, that "bite-the-bullet-and-get-it-done" mentality has also served, and continues to serve, me well.

Precisely because a part of me appreciates the regenerative possibilities that life changes bring, I'm excited about our recently reached decision to move to the tiny village of my small college on the hill. Now the wheels are slowly starting to grind in that direction, and that's an exciting, if also daunting prospect. For one, it means we have to sell our lovely house in the current "Have-we-hit-rock-bottom-yet?" housing market.

After moving out of our big house in the little city, we'll either have to move into an apartment or find a house we like that's not too expensive in the tiny village. The goal is for me to live close enough to my office so that I can walk or bicycle there, as I can do now from my little apartment in the woods. My husband, country boy that he is, will enjoy the country living that the tiny village affords.

While I'm saddened by the thought that I'll leave behind this beautiful home, and my wild birds, and my peonies, and my squirrels, and Mr. Robin, I'm pasando la página, as my mami advised. I'm moving on. My futurismo as my papi calls it, is in full gear, and all I can see is what the future might bring. Thus, I've started packing up stuff and giving stuff away at a rate that has shocked even my husband, who Thoreau-like loves to rant against attachment to (and the collection of) material things.

We have no idea right now what the change will bring. We might end up with another little apartment in the woods, except looking toward another set of woods, and then wait until a house shows up that we like or, alternatively, wait for a lot of land that would allow us to build our dream house.

Whatever comes, I've fully switched into my changing-and-loving-it mode, so let's enjoy the ride, bumps and all, and hope and pray that the road rises to meet us.