full moon #2

"my barn having burned
to the ground
I can now see the moon..."

28 days ago, we left Missouri under a full moon. one lunar month later, we can see a beautiful full moon through the skylight of our upstairs bedroom.
talking with my friends about our move, the most asked question is: why?
why now? why Santa Cruz? how could you decide so quickly?
well, it wasn't a fast decision to leave Missouri. I would say the conversation about living somewhere else started very early in my relationship with Rich in 1999, and I had been thinking about it seriously since divorcing in 1994. in many ways, I was never "at home" in Missouri after returning there from New England in 1987.
it took a number of years of discussing Rich being unhappy with the cold winters and me being unhappy with the hot summers for us to identify a place with a more moderate climate in both seasons that we thought we would both enjoy.  for at least 6 months before our departure, we had our sights on the central California coast, although we were definitely willing to change our minds if it didn't seem "right."
granted, we were distracted a few times by thinking about the Bay Area, thinking about San Diego, thinking about Oregon...but we kept coming back to the central coast. we borrowed the entire library collection on California a few times over. we identified more with Northern California, and the state's golf association splits at San Luis Obispo, so we eventually felt we would want to be at least that far north. yes, this is me talking about deciding where to live because of golf tournaments.
the time for a move was ripe, with both kids clearly gone and not coming back. I had been working on separating from The Kitchen Clinic for a good long while. and taking care of a 3 bedroom house on a double lot was taking up more time and delivering less pleasure all the time.
our trip up the coast from San Luis Obispo was all positive. not a bad place in the lot. but Santa Cruz felt more urban, yet still of a manageable size, and close to the things we wanted: family, weather, beach, university, and, yes, golf.
sometimes it still is scary to think we did this. we occasionally look at each one another in terror,  knowing that in a very real sense "we" are "us," period. most of the time, we are grateful we gave one another enough strength to pull up stakes and try it. everyday, there are many things to love here that we did not have before.
and tomorrow? well, I still want to do some organizing in the back porch.