The Reason

It's been quiet here on A Thinking Stomach, and there's a reason for it:

This summer, we learned that E may win a great job; in September, he won it; last week, he moved north to start it.

Ever since the possibility of the move came up I was certain it would happen, so I stopped planning for a fall or winter garden, and started planning on shutting things down. Every step outside to work in the yard now is an effort to clean up, clear out, erase. I'll be here in Southern California for two more months, shutting the ranchito down and selling it, cleaning up our rental property and selling that, closing up my chapter at my school, and in general, transitioning. It's a lot. But, I am enough. 

I'm not ready to write about what the ranchito has taught me in our years here, or to reflect on two decades at my school, but I did want to give you a glimpse of what's going on so you know the reason for the silence. 

It's not an unhappy silence—I'm so excited for the new possibilities the Bay Area will provide the two of us, the new growing climate to learn, the new places to explore—and it's only a temporary silence. A Thinking Stomach is not a place, but a part of me, and it goes where I go. 

This morning, a quiet fog settled over the garden and the canyon. I worked cleaning out a vegetable bed, and dug up the ginger that had grown from the single piece I planted this spring. After pulling it up and handling it's pearly newest shoots, my fingers smelled like candy. This life, even in the midst of change and anxiety, sleeplessness and hard, hard work, is sweet.