September sun

My friend Greta has an annoying habit of throwing my own pearls of wisdom back at me. Greta first started this when I was living in San Francisco and she was living in New York and I had sent her a long thoughtful email full of advice and perspective when she was lamenting over love's loss. Several months later when I was nursing my own aching heart, she actually cut and paste those very words and sent them back in an email to me! I am not sure I appreciated it at the time.

A few months ago I was talking to my friend Jane in San Clemente about going through change, and how most people talk about it after they've been thru something. In hindsight you can look back with such clarity and perspective and see what had to end before something could begin, and essentially see the gift in that, but the 'during' part is often very muddled and messy and not much fun! Jane has Greta's elephant-like memory of past conversations so when it became my turn to go thru change, she has reminded me of the cloudy days that are part of the package, and that some days all you really can do is just be gentle with yourself.

Someone asked me yesterday if I was excited to be here and I burst into tears. I am not excited yet. Still a little overwhelmed that a week ago I was spending time with people who had been part of my day-to-day life -- going on a beach walk, packing boxes and having pumpkin ravioli at The Vine. Seven days later I'm on the other side of the country, over-tired, behind at work, living out of a suitcase at extended family's house, nerves a little frayed, not able to move into my new apartment until I 'meet the co-op board' next Wednesday night (which all my California friends think is straight out of a Seinfeld episode).

Stacy and Jason and the kids went to the Hamptons today as it's a beautiful September day and they are planning on a weekend of pool time, tennis, riding bikes. I opted to stay behind to relax and recharge a bit. I said I was going on a neighborhood walk later and planned to investigate a new yoga studio to join, catch up on work, knock off some of the to-do tasks I still need to do with this end of the relocation, find a smoothie shop and also try to catch up with some friends and family.

So far I have done none of that. What I have done is sit on the terrace outside Carly's pink princess room and read Stacy's issue of Oprah magazine, and just enjoyed the pleasure of the dappled September sun.