Almost Gone.
It is finished.
We will be leaving Utah. Our real estate deal is now finalized. We have around three months to linger here, finish our tourist season, get packed, and get moved. The plan is to return to New Orleans for a few months, maybe even if this Ernesto storm hits. There is no telling at this point since that whole landfall scenario is a week away. We will play it by ear. I have been consumed with our real estate deal of late, and I've hardly been motivated to write anything in the blog until this contract stuff was finally concluded; we close the deal December 1st. The day that we signed the last papers and initialed the last addendums, a solid rain fell from late afternoon into the night. There was an incredible rainbow, a full half-circle, over the town and surrounding landscape for the duration of the sunset. It was beautiful. It was a sign. We saw a rainbow over town the day that we first moved here in 2000. To me, rainbows will always be the promise of a good new beginning in life. Since that recent rainy evening, something else has been in the air here...a feeling and a scent that can only be described as autumn returning.
After much hand-wringing about the cooling real estate market, I feel blessed that this deal will be closing and we will get on with a new life before the elections in the fall begin to make a difference in American lives...as always, there is never any telling how politics and congress can change what goes on in the lives of Americans. I feel freed of obligations, although we do have to do some due diligence concerning the business end of the sale. Utah has been an interesting era in our lives. As of this writing, I don't want to say anything more about Utah until I am freed from its borders. Once I am gone, however, I know that I may manage to squeeze out some essays about small town living and Utah oddities that are only known to residents that commit to being here for some time. Possibly the worst part about having lived in Utah will be driving around with a Utah license tag on the car until we get a new tag; it's the damndest thing, but on the highway I swear people always stare when we pass, or they pass us. I guess they want to see if there are any other wives in the car. Then there will be the explanations to those we meet anew..."Oh no, we're not Mormon...we just lived there for a little while."
There will be sadness at leaving, too. I am reminded of a book I recently read, "The Prophet." Of course it's a classic, but I never got around to reading it until my friend Kim sent me a copy. It's a beautiful book. I love the premise: a stranger about to return home, leaving a foreign land he has lived in for years, gives some parting advice to his adopted community. Honestly, with what we have lived through here, I could write my own version of this book and it would be just as profound and soul-jarring as the original. I may yet do something along those lines for the few dear ones we will leave behind when we move away--if I'm not busy with a yard sale, or cleaning my home for the last time, or busy with a tourist. I feel that it will be our last full fall in the southwest...for some reason, I don't feel as though we will ever live here again. I love New Mexico, and it was on our short list as a place to possibly move, but it is not within the top two spots right now. Perhaps the southwest will return to our lives at a later phase.
We will be leaving Utah. Our real estate deal is now finalized. We have around three months to linger here, finish our tourist season, get packed, and get moved. The plan is to return to New Orleans for a few months, maybe even if this Ernesto storm hits. There is no telling at this point since that whole landfall scenario is a week away. We will play it by ear. I have been consumed with our real estate deal of late, and I've hardly been motivated to write anything in the blog until this contract stuff was finally concluded; we close the deal December 1st. The day that we signed the last papers and initialed the last addendums, a solid rain fell from late afternoon into the night. There was an incredible rainbow, a full half-circle, over the town and surrounding landscape for the duration of the sunset. It was beautiful. It was a sign. We saw a rainbow over town the day that we first moved here in 2000. To me, rainbows will always be the promise of a good new beginning in life. Since that recent rainy evening, something else has been in the air here...a feeling and a scent that can only be described as autumn returning.
After much hand-wringing about the cooling real estate market, I feel blessed that this deal will be closing and we will get on with a new life before the elections in the fall begin to make a difference in American lives...as always, there is never any telling how politics and congress can change what goes on in the lives of Americans. I feel freed of obligations, although we do have to do some due diligence concerning the business end of the sale. Utah has been an interesting era in our lives. As of this writing, I don't want to say anything more about Utah until I am freed from its borders. Once I am gone, however, I know that I may manage to squeeze out some essays about small town living and Utah oddities that are only known to residents that commit to being here for some time. Possibly the worst part about having lived in Utah will be driving around with a Utah license tag on the car until we get a new tag; it's the damndest thing, but on the highway I swear people always stare when we pass, or they pass us. I guess they want to see if there are any other wives in the car. Then there will be the explanations to those we meet anew..."Oh no, we're not Mormon...we just lived there for a little while."
There will be sadness at leaving, too. I am reminded of a book I recently read, "The Prophet." Of course it's a classic, but I never got around to reading it until my friend Kim sent me a copy. It's a beautiful book. I love the premise: a stranger about to return home, leaving a foreign land he has lived in for years, gives some parting advice to his adopted community. Honestly, with what we have lived through here, I could write my own version of this book and it would be just as profound and soul-jarring as the original. I may yet do something along those lines for the few dear ones we will leave behind when we move away--if I'm not busy with a yard sale, or cleaning my home for the last time, or busy with a tourist. I feel that it will be our last full fall in the southwest...for some reason, I don't feel as though we will ever live here again. I love New Mexico, and it was on our short list as a place to possibly move, but it is not within the top two spots right now. Perhaps the southwest will return to our lives at a later phase.
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