The last few weeks have been quite the whirlwind. There is more than I can possibly say in a single post, but I will do what I can to post more frequently now that we are at least not living bi-coastally.
A couple of days after we arrived with cats in tow, David and I commuted back and forth between Plattsburgh and Lake Placid for several days (discovering several cool country roads in the process). David’s stepmother’s family has a house (or a camp in local parlance) where they/we have been gathering as an extended family since long before I arrived on the scene. This year, David’s family’s week coincided with our first week in New York. We were hesitant to leave our cats alone having just recently moved them cross-country, so we visited during the days and spent the nights at home with the beasties.
It is always nice when we gather there and have an opportunity to catch up with people we see all too rarely. This year, for a variety of reasons, the cast of characters was different than usual. Those who couldn’t make it were very much missed, but it was a great opportunity to get to know some relative newcomers.
Sadly, there was one very noticeable absence. Shortly before this year’s gathering, we lost a beloved family member. Since Lake Placid was his happy place, we interred him there, in view of the Adirondacks that he loved. It was a perfect time and place to say our farewells, but we were all acutely aware that he was taken from us much too soon.
I stayed in Plattsburgh for David’s first service (which was very well received, I am excited to say) and then flew back to Portland to do some final packing and supervise the last stages of the move. Unsurprisingly, it was a bumpy process. We will get a better sense of just how bumpy when our furniture and boxes arrive tomorrow. For the moment, let me just say that the movers were not used to Reedie/rabbinical types and were overwhelmed by the sheer number of books we own. What they didn’t know was just how many boxes of books had already been culled from our collection.
As an aside, I remarked to a friend that David’s books now make up about 2/3 of our total collection. And of those, about a third were written more than 1500 years ago. Although the copyrights may have expired, they are not always easy to locate electronically. And even if they were, it somehow seems appropriate to me to have paper editions of texts that were written long before modern paper making techniques or moveable text were invented.
To wrap up this rambling post, let me cut to the chase. On July 13th I made my final flight east as an Oregonian. The next day, several of David’s congregants welcomed me home. Although I am not sure I could have predicted that I would ultimately settle in New York, I am very glad to be here.