Sneaky/Happy

I am certain that I mentioned before that I am not a good negotiator.  My husband learned this when we agreed that a certain Friday would be the last day that we would be able to accept an offer from the university.  Then I never communicated that date to them and I didn't get the contract.  My philosophy is that people will do what's right and that they are doing the best they can.

So Grey gave me (and them) an extension until Wednesday.  I communicated this with everything but a bullhorn.  I went behind someone's back.  I cajoled and wheedled.  Wednesday came; Wednesday went.  No contract.  Thursday morning I got the first of the two contracts.  Friday at 4:30, after I posted my blog, I found the second contract in my inbox.

I was so sad.  We'd discussed it.  We had decided.  End of story.  I thought that perhaps it couldn't hurt to forward the contract to him at work and see what he thought.  In the meantime, I was looking forward to some other neat opportunities in Oklahoma at two of the state colleges.  C'mon, I'm a Ph.D.  I can find something relatively easily.  Gulp.  With insurance.  And benefits. That pays ok. As a teacher.  Shoooooooo!

Besides, we already decided a course of action, right?  NO way to change our minds, right?  Stay in comfy, cushy Oklahoma with its mild winters and blistering hot can't-breathe-for-2-months heat that depresses me and makes me want to live on a polar ice cap.  That's the plan.  No way I'm asking Grey to reconsider and please may we move to Washington after I'd already secured an extension.

Thoughts swirled through my tornado brain.  If I have never told you about my tornado brain, it's an amazing and efficient machine.  Any event that happens, my brain likes to imagine the worst case scenario, then whip the event around in my head several times and force a scary and difficult outcome wherein I end up living under an overpass with only Eleanor, a shopping cart and a machete.  Depending on how much I wanted what I didn't get, and sometimes depending on how much I wanted what I did get, it doesn't take long for me to get to the shopping cart scenario.  This time?  Five point two seconds.  With broken down house slippers and a mumu. That's a record of some sort.

By the time Grey got home from work around 6:30, I was in a lather.  I would not wouldnotwouldnot ask him to change our plans.  We were heading out for Norman immediately, so we decided to wait and talk on the way.  Time dragged as he packed his things.  I breathed.  I felt a trickle of sweat slide down the hollow part of my back.  My ear itched; I scratched.  I petted the cat.  He forgot something.  I threw everything (including the cat in her carrier) in the back seat and jumped in.

"So."
"Yep."
"You got the contracts?"
"Yep."
"What do you want to do?"
"..."
"Huh?"
"I said that's not fair.  We decided.  I am not asking to change the course of action."
"Oh."  He thought for a moment.
"Well, what do you want to happen?"  I smelled a trap.
"That's not fair.  I want to know what you think too." He smiled. Grey has a regular smile, a 5,000 watt smile and a sly smile.  This was his sly smile.
"Yeah, I'll tell you what I want.  You first."
"I think we already decided.  I think we should stay in Oklahoma."
"But what do you Want?"
"I want to go to Washington."
"Ok. Let's go."
"Whoa buddy. Input first. You can't just make pronouncements without telling me what's on your mind.  I need your thinking."  Again, Grey smiled his sly smile.  The middle of his lips stay put but the corners go up exponentially, creating a deep V that makes his eyes crinkle a little.  It's...fetching. My heart always beats a little faster when he smiles like that.
"I was thinking that giving them a Wednesday deadline was likely to get a contract by Friday."  By Friday?  My brain tornadoes.  Wait. What?  So he..
"Did you play me?"
"Uh, yeah."

He tricked me.  He gave me a Wednesday deadline so that I would become a hard-nosed negotiator because he knew I would be frantic.  Oh! I never!  How.... Effective.  Oh and he lied to me!  I spent almost .03 seconds being mad at being so easy to predict.  Then I realized that we are moving to Washington.

We are moving back to Washington! Yay!

Yay for beaches and mountains and Canada and Seattle and sisters and nieces and nephews and hiking and a blue state!

Looking out from Port Angeles

Quilcene Bay, 2011
On a clear day, you can see forever

Mt. St. Helens

Port Angeles, Washington

Sand Dunes, Port Townsend, Washington

Dandelion

I have always had a sense of adventure. I like new places and exploration. I never felt the need to stay rooted to one spot for too long. I like the ramble, the movement, the excitement of what might be just around the corner. We moved a lot when I was a kid and I learned to be portable. I remember when we bought a place up in Dayton, up the Touchet river in Rogers Gulch. It was 50 acres of rimrock and hillside punctuated with a strawberry field and a wheat field. It was surrounded by 800 acres of nothing but cattle, coyotes, deer, elk and bears and we had the whole gulch to ourselves. Yvette (my sister) and I scrambled all over that property in our Levis and boots and teeshirts. I loved it. And I loved moving on afterwards, though my fondest memories took place there, with a doublewide trailer and a 10% grade driveway. I think I left a good piece of my soul in the wild rosebushes and green apple trees that grew along the half mile dirt road. That's ok; it's happy and safe there. Tons of rattlesnakes to protect it.

As an adult I've moved around too. Washington, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma and some sticky places in between. I used to love tossing everything in my truck - because everything I had fit into just one truck- and moving to some new and exciting/depressing/hopeful/scary/unknown locale for new adventures and good coffee. I've always had a few common denominators along the way. A few photo albums, a very few mementos from my youth and Gray Kit

ty. Gray Kitty was a gift for my second birthday and probably the one constant from when I was growing up. I had a big teddy bear named FuzzyWuzzy that I used as a pillow, but my mother gave him away when I was 8. So I've had Gray Kitty my whole life and also tend to adopt cats that are gray. Go figure.

Five years ago this month, I bought a house. It's the third time I've purchased property but the first time entirely on my own. My ex-husband and I had purchased a house and some land several years ago, so I at least knew how to do it. I wasn't sure that this is what I wanted to do- to put down roots. I talked to people I respect and got their opinions. It's scary to stay in one place for me. I feel as though I'll get stagnant, bored, that I'll somehow grow old and die. For Yvette, it was easy because she doesn't share the same philosophy as me. She still lives in our same small town where we graduated high school. I'm not sure I possess the moxy to stay in one place for more than 5 years or so.

As one could imagine, moving around takes its toll on relationships. I like looking around the corners of the world and traveling light, with nothing to tie me down. I'm like a dog who jumps the fence at every chance, running through neighborhoods, tongue hanging out, smelling new things and sometimes getting rebuked by a skunk. I guess that not everyone shares this wanderlust. As I near the end of my doctoral program, the thing that has held me in Oklahoma will disappear. I find myself at an uncomfortable crossroads. I have solid relationships in Oklahoma. I know some very good people here. I love some people. I am a supportive friend and I have supportive friends here. I am a known quantity in my professional life. This is where I learned to be an adult. This is where I know the good sushi restaurants and where to find Ethiopian food that will make you poop funny for three days and this is where I know to go when my heart hurts. But I am also a fearful person and in some ways immature. Perhaps if I stay someplace for too long, then that place will define me. I will look around and ask "Is this as good as it gets?" and I'm afraid of the answer. So the open road calls. Run...run away...

So I have mentally hunkered down in a corner lately to try to figure things out. I don't know where I'm going to be in six months. It could be here. It could be Ada, Port Angeles, Oregon or Rome or any point on the map. I feel uncomfortable letting people get too close right for fear of hurting them or me if I leave. Maybe that makes me selfish; maybe that makes me unselfish. Maybe that just makes me cautious or maybe I'm just a scared little girl looking for excuses.

When I was 18, I wanted to go away to college. I had a boyfriend that I stayed in the area for. The guy is long gone and as it turns out, so am I. I didn't want to stay in that small town. Since I'm always coming and going and on my way somewhere, I think I don't have time to have relationships that are lasting. I sure don't think anyone would want to follow me around the world. Eleanor is easy but it's hard for me to own a dog because I can't go too far for too long.

I'm alone a lot by choice. It's the nature of my work as a writer and teacher and easier than speaking to people face to face, which is often exhausting for me. I don't know if I'll ever pull myself out of this and I don't know what it will take for me to commit to one time and place and situation and stay there for more than two years. I wonder if that is in me or if I will always be a gypsy and a wildflower, a dandelion seed blowing in the wind.