Westward Home

My family left San Francisco and we forgot to take our hearts. Ouch.

The cat’s experience says it all. We’re in the SFO Airport—Grain, our Russian Blue cat, has a systolic convulsion that results in simultaneous orifice excretions; vomit and poo all over the pre-boarding area carpet. My husband, our two sons, and I understand. This was the exit rite we all felt churning in our guts. Go kitty.

Bad investments were sucking the life-blood from our bank account. I dreamt of doctoring receipts, lottery infusions, and donor dollars. Money in. Money out. Money out. Money out. Action was inevitable but I was defiant. I took a lot of naps. I awoke, doubled over from fatigue and sick with worry. I shook my fist at God. I struck bargains. I vowed to be a better person. I yelled at my family. Then, one day, it was over. We were drained, anemic. We sold our house and moved away. To Georgia.

In our newly adopted state, we were free of debt and homeless. Sort of like entering the pearly gates, free of doubt and home free, only different. This was the South we had relocated to—nice, but not heaven. I made the best of it. It was hell. No craggy ocean bluffs, no golden hills, no Eucalyptus trees, no Chinatown. We made the transition easier, went land-locked and bought twenty minutes outside mid-town Atlanta. Living is cheap here. Gas prices are, if not reasonable, not ridiculous, goods and services are attainable within a moderate budget, and housing options are plentiful. The reverse sticker shock revived me, an echo of a heartbeat scuttled solidly in my chest, reassuring me of my ability to thrive. But could I live here?

My young son Milo, with a Hubble telescope emotional radar, has to be separated from a buddy on the school bus. He has pissed off his teacher, and the lunch lady writes me notes about his behavior. I call a meeting with the principal and the teacher—best to take the offensive before they place him in a cage in the janitor’s closet. Apparently, the teacher’s beef is that Milo is restless in class; he is always on task and completing his work but he is a) putting his knees in his shirt, b) raising his hand but blurting out answers before being called on, c) chewing on his water bottle, d) whittling on his pencil, e) being our li’l Moochie. Clearly, this gal needs to keep twenty-one kids in line, but I attended a parents’ night where she shared her one hour, seventeen-page presentation bullet point by bullet point—I left with my shirt stretched out and a rather nicely carved pencil statue of the Dali Lama. We have been here six weeks.