A Week Ago Today, Two Weeks from Tomorrow

A week ago, we would be closing on our house in the mountains of North Carolina. Back in Florida, it seems a bit surreal, even as we are surrounded by an ever increasing number of boxes.

It was surreal being in Arden, NC, driving around the area where the church camp Lutheridge is located (our house is in the residential part of the camp), as we made our way back and forth to the lawyer's office in nearby Hendersonville for the closing.  I have been coming to these mountains at least once a year since childhood, and they have changed dramatically.  When I was a child coming to camp, if you left something at home, you did without.  Now you could go to Walmart or Target or any number of stores to get what you forgot.

Our house and tiny lot (0.29 of an acre) is not the vast homestead I envisioned as a college student when we made trips to the mountains.  But realistically, even if we could afford any sort of acreage, we are now getting old enough to have to wonder if we could care for that amount of land.  Our current plot is left in its natural state--no mowing!--and we're happy about that.  More important, the neighborhood is happy about that too--it's a mix of more manicured lawns and wild spaces.

The neighborhood is on the outer edge of the church camp Lutheridge.  The camp itself is on 600+ acres, some of the last undeveloped land in the Arden area.  When you look at satellite pictures of our house, you can't see the house because of the tree canopy.  That makes me happy.

Even as we get ready to move, it is surreal to think about actually leaving South Florida.  We moved here in 1998.  I remember being excited to explore new surroundings that were so different from any I had ever known before.  We ate all kinds of new foods from Latin America.  Now those foods are more widespread, but back then they weren't.  I checked the cookbook Miami Spice out of the library, in part because I could and in part so that I could get a sense of this new foodway.  I remember the first time having Tres Leches cake, which was both a delight and not at all what I expected, even with the cookbook to guide me.  The whole summer of 1998 was full of those kinds of moments.

Two weeks from tomorrow, the moving van will arrive, and soon after that, we will head north.  We will stay at the Arden house for a few weeks until we head to Washington DC to get me settled in Wesley Seminary housing.  For the few weeks in Arden, I hope we have a time of exploration and discovery the way we did in 1998.