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January Newsletter - Goodbye California!

On October 1, 1980, just two months before my 24th birthday, I moved from Chicago to San Francisco with my then-boyfriend. I wanted to escape the Midwest winters and establish myself as an adult away from my family. I sold all my furniture, gave away over seventy houseplants and came to California with a couple of suitcases.

I had never even been to San Francisco. I gleaned all I knew about the city from travel books from the library. Lots of pretty pictures of Victorian buildings and sunsets over the Pacific Ocean.

Getting off an airport bus at the Transbay Terminal with its grimy pavement and rather seedy surroundings didn’t quite match the photos of Victorian row houses I’d poured over. And the dingy hotel I checked into on the edge of the Tenderloin District (even people unfamiliar with San Francisco can picture a neighborhood with that name) certainly dampened my spirits.

But in time, I rented an almost-okay apartment in a not-too-nice neighborhood, found my way around the city by public transportation ($.25 per ride!), got a menial clerical job, and settled in.

That was forty-one years ago. Since then, I’ve lived in six apartments and four houses in four different cities. But all of them in the Bay Area. I’ve stayed loyal. Until now.

It’s time for me to make another big move, this time to Portland, Oregon. I’m moving to a place that experiences more winter (although rarely if ever the subzero degree weather of Chicago) to be near some of my family, including my 94-year-old mother. It’s amazing the curveballs life can throw at you.

I’m not sure where my need for this change came from. Just as I surprised myself when I decided become a teacher at the age of thirty-two. And then took another U-turn when, after twenty-three years of teaching, I left the classroom to become an instructional coach.

And especially when I began working on a memoir after years writing poetry. New desires that seemed to come out of nowhere. 

And now this new adventure. I’ve talked about relocating to Oregon for a few years now, but am only now ready for it. Today I will once again board an airplane stuffed with as many clothes as I can fit in my suitcase.