I can not believe it has been a year

Exactly a year ago, Charis and I left the cherry trees in there full splendor of pink and white blossoms, and our Japanese Maple in its pink flowered canvas, to a dark, cold and bleak Minnesota. We were welcomed with warmth, love and great anticipation by Chris and Becca.
We flew out for a four day weekend to see if the move to the midwest was doable: physically, economically, spiritually and ontologically. We tracked many miles on the Subaru Outback, visited three houses, helped our realtor get her Saturn SUV out of a ditch and I visited three middle schools. We ate great pizza, drank good beer and had many amany conversation. It was an exciting and difficult time. After being too stoic and afraid, I made Charis cry in the Minneapolis Airport. I did not know how to express my fear and nervousness. I knew this was right, but knew it was hard.
Charis, the saint, pulled me and herself through and I was able to communicate with her and myself. We were going. It was horribly exciting.
Now a year later, I can not believe all that has happened. I am amazed and at awe. It has not been all peaches and cream, but to see Charis spend hours in the sub-zero cold with her horses, and watch her come inside all smiles and as warm as an oyster in Mexico, it all makes perfect sense. Standing outside at 1 am looking at the stars and listening to two coyotes packs, it all makes perfect sense. Becoming intimate friends with Chris and Becca, to know I am to be a live-in Uncle, it all makes perfect sense.
I have hated my job, the jail I keep locked with students. They have no voice, freedom and they are not known. I watch them and feel them fall through my finger tips and I can do nothing. I have dear friends with Chris and Becca, Kevin and Allison, but I miss Monday Night dinner, beer and conversation with Dennis, Saturday nights at the Ship, Alan Jones Sextet, sitting in our hot tub with the gang, frisbee with Dan, Nick at Lucky Lab, Tuesday night Mexican meals with Derrick, the best students and teaching team to imagine. I have been terribly lonely and afraid. I have been afraid of losing my edge, my passion, being swept into the norm that is the Mid-West and especially the suburb I work. What was on TV last night is the deepest of depth a conversation with another teacher there is. Nobody recycles and they drive everywhere. I feel more out of place everyday I am in Minneapolis and Hopkins. I do not belong.
YET, the peace, joy, energy and creativity that pulses through my veins at the farm is exhilerating. The driving passion behind Charis, Chris, Becca and I makes me sing. Again, I can not explain seeing Charis at the farm. She has found her home. Her essence is complete there. Her beauty radiates there, Her energy is Herculian there. This is her home. This is my home.

So what I wanted to write to begin with. I can not believe it has been a year. The idea was hatched and action has exploded. I got a job, we moved horses 2000 miles safely, we bought a 37 acre farm in beautiful rolling hills surrounded by trees and silence, we gutted a room and completely rebuilt it, we added electric fencing, we added a wood stove, we gutted a bathroom (it is all studs and nothing else), we painted all of the upstairs and three rooms downstairs, we bucked hay, we started a compost pile, we have chopped and stacked piles of wood. We have deck and hot tub plans drawn. We have garden plans drawn. We have a bathroom to rebuild, a kitchen to recounter and rip up the two layers of linoleum. I can not wait.
I can not wait to sit on that deck, beer in hand, friends sitting beside and to laugh and cry and to be silent and hear the coyotes.

Wow, I can not believe a year ago, I sat trembling, afraid and excited. I still tremble, but the fear is gone, the love has increased and the excitement pours out of my being.

Jay