What fun to find my former self on these few pages written while I was embarking on a new life path.
Maybe “fun” isn’t the right word. Odd, then. But not in a particularly bad way. More like a befuddled, “Huh. Where did that person go?”
The last time I posted, we had just moved to Long Island. We lived there almost three years. We stopped homeschooling and enrolled in (a very good) public school. One boy took up running. The other, soccer. They made a film and premiered it at the talent show. We made good friends. We got a dog.
We went upstate, visiting Sleepy Hollow right around Halloween. We made it to TWO Yankees games and more than one Mets-Brewers games. We spent one Christmas in the city, eating the best Chinese dumplings ever and visiting the top of the Rock. We made it, with only weeks to spare, to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
And we did the American Museum of Natural History and Central Park twice, not to mention the Met, the Guggenheim, and MoMA. We went to Philly (twice), and DC, and Boston, and the Green Mountains in Vermont, and Shenandoah. We managed to make it to Fire Island and Montauk, and we perfected the drive from NY to WI and back again.
I started on a new career path with Eastern National: I was the site supervisor at Sagamore Hill, a job that allowed me to flex my writing and visual presentation skills, along with managing employees and budgets. It was fun (fun is indeed the right word here). I was in on the planning and prep for some important events, did work at the NPS sites in the city, and got to try my hand at product development and promotion. I don’t like to brag, but Eastern National did pretty well at Sagamore Hill while I was there, and I’m darn proud of my work for the company.
Then the husband got a job at Grand Canyon. And here we are! Living at one of the most iconic national parks of all time. I mean, come on! There’s even a movie called Grand Canyon! (I should find that one for the boys to watch, though they’ll spend the whole time asking me why it’s called Grand Canyon when it’s set in LA.)
New state. New career path. I’m an English teacher at the high school here, recruited the day after we arrived. And yes, I’ve been an English teacher before, but not in a K-12 context, and there’s definitely a learning curve.
It’s been a whirlwind of change–change of culture, change of profession, change of climate, change of elevation, change of exactly how long it takes to get home (too long). When I go to the edge of the canyon, I expect to see water. I grew up on the edge of Lake Michigan, where the best views are of water. There’s no water here, at least none you can feast your eyes on, unless you hike the several miles down into the Canyon to the Colorado River. If you do, though, fair warning: you also have to hike the several miles back up and out, which is hard work. I guess that’s how I’d characterize this new chapter in my life–everything is harder. The ground is harder, the hikes are harder, the work is harder, the views are harder. The life is harder.
You should come visit.
unmoored 