We moved from sunny California to postcard-perfect New England. We ate clams and lobsters, picked blueberries, peaches, and apples. Then winter came.
A weed. A petal of that fluffy ball called dandelion that my child used to pick up from the soccer field. She would blow on it, sending its translucent florets up in the air only to find a new spot to cling on to—to thrive, to take root, and to flourish again in the dirt under the happy rays of the bright Southern California sun.
A weed. Yes, I called myself exactly that. I was a mom of two young girls, 13 and 10, and approaching her mid-50s when I said, “yes,” a big, booming yes to the question: “How would you feel about moving to the other side of the country, to New England?”
We’ve all embraced the rural life. Sabby learned how to McGyver the car’s wheel with a hockey stick to get it out of the snow; Annika learned how to drive a tractor to cut the grass.
This opportunity of a career change for my husband James came at a most perfect time. Our firstborn Sabby was entering high school, and Annika, middle school. The girls were ready for a big change anyway, having lived in California all their lives, I told myself.
My head started conjuring up dreamy images: Driving down a road lit up by gold, orange and red trees; seeing my girls run up to a roadside dive to eat $7 lobsters; picking blueberries in the wild; digging for clams in the beach; hiking with the family often; eating cider donuts, and making snow angels in the winter.
I told James, “Oh, I’m so thrilled to experience new things, and hey don’t you ever forget—I’m Filipino! I’m like a weed and I will grow, take root and blossom into something beautiful wherever the wind blows me.”
I further reassured him, “And as long as we have each other and our girls are healthy and happy, we will be okay, more than okay.”
Down East
And so we moved. We found a place on several acres that backed up to the woods, ringed by a pond that teems with wild, wide-mouth bass and mature maple trees. It was postcard-perfect.
Our new home is contiguous to a sprawling university campus that is busy when school is on, and dead as soon as the college kids leave. Typical of sleepy New England towns, the campus’ main street boasts a handful of conveniences that I could count in one hand. There’s a pizza place, a bistro, a convenience store, a juice bar, an ice cream parlor—all contained in a short two blocks. No more traffic gridlocks, ambulance noise, car chase, pollution and police sirens of our Los Angeles days.
And then the fun adventure in real life began.
We ate all the clams and lobsters that we could, picked all the blueberries, peaches, and apples that we wanted, polished off cones of black raspberry ice cream, and more. It was a most beautiful summer, the beach was only about 20 minutes away and driving across other New England states for eats was hassle-free.
We would have breakfast in New Hampshire, lunch in Massachusetts and dinner and dessert on the coast of Maine. Oh, the joy and fun we had!
And then winter came.
Do I miss city life at all? Absolutely! For when the slowness of life brings me misery, I hop on the train to go to a special place only an hour away, to Boston to soak up a much needed shot of crime and grime.
I was not prepared for the kind of winter that New England offered. For starters, it was very, very cold. Don’t get me wrong, I know what cold weather was and I was not a snow newbie since we would fly off to my in-laws to snowy Chicago every Christmas.
My daughters were natural snow bunnies and had taken to downhill skiing in places like Deer Valley in Utah, Lake Louise in Calgary, Mammoth Mountain in California and even an indoor skiing park in the Netherlands in the middle of summer.
But New England cold? That’s another story. What I was also not prepared for was the looming darkness the long winter brought all over the northeast. This sunshine girl had underestimated the mental strength needed to overwinter in a rather large Cape Cod-style house all by her lonesome, when husband and daughters were at work and at school.
The long, dark, cold days crept up oh so slowly, and stayed for oh so long. We got our first snowfall in early November and it was still snowing in May, a couple of days before Mother’s Day! My love for winter wonderland had long gone by then, and the joke “How do we dig ourselves out of here?” ceased to become funny every time we got a huge snow dump.
But I knew summer would come around again.
Slow living
I had no choice but to pivot to survive. I stepped on the brakes and embraced the retooling process that would lead me to a that slow kind of living, a lifestyle that required me to mother my kids with more autonomy. I embraced the advantages our new, less-frenetic pace life. The girls biked themselves to school, walked themselves to the library to check out books for free, and took hikes on unfamiliar trails in the woods. All this without me worrying that they would disappear without a trace.
I have changed, too. I’ve learned how to shop seasonal stuff so we could all learn how to eat seasonally. For example I began roasting different kinds of squashes in the fall and not look for plump, fresh, juicy strawberries in the dead of winter.
I planted my own herbs and vegetables and harvested my own sweet, juicy tomatoes that I made into jars of marinara sauce. I’ve baked pies from our garden peaches and I’ve taken to raising our own backyard chicken for our own fresh, free range, organic eggs.
I cook our dinners mostly, reserving eating out to celebrate special occasions. We have become locavores, choosing to feed ourselves food that were sourced within 30 miles of our residence. New England is overflowing with small farms that sell produce, meat, cheese, and dairy. We have discovered new dining options, not just farm to table, but also boat to plate, when the lobster on your plate just came off the trap from the back of the river house.
I’ve learned how to fix problems in the house when my husband was away on business trips. My daughters did, too. Sabby learned how to McGyver the car’s wheel with a hockey stick to get it out of the snow. At age 14, Annika, too, learned how to drive a tractor to cut the grass.
We’ve all embraced rural life.
Do I miss city life at all? Absolutely! For when the slowness of life brings me misery, I hop on the train to go to a special place only an hour away, to Boston to soak up a much needed shot of crime and grime. After a day of breathing in and taking it all in, I’d feel okay again. I’d hop back on the train and back to that piece of dirt where the wind blew off the weed and planted me to take root, slowly and deeply.
