The New 'rent in Renton

You know big things have been happening when I can't find the time to squeeze out some Chaya story-pics with a side of belly button lint!

Why sleep when you can read.

Read alll the books

Lemme catch y'all up or I'll never get back to vaguebloggish poetical prose about existential unease coupled with sensual savoring of mundane moments and sensations. (Andrew might have suggested the the film adaptation of my blog would be directed by David Lynch though I prefer early Aronofsky or maybe Truffaut, Tartovsky). But this gonna be heavier on the informational catching up... or is it???

So. Renton. We live there now. Which is not actually Seattle, but far more within the Seattle orbit. The Seattle 'Burbs. We can just saunter into Seattle without the horrifying prospect of EVERETT, so that's something. I-405 ain't no picnic so traffic is always a consideration. So we can saunter at non-rush hour times anyways.

Renton: Home of the Seahawks and Jimmy Hendrix's memorial. Renton 4-EVAH!!! Or until our 10 month lease is up and we move somewhere else in the general Kent area. Who can say. Renton 4-NOW!!!

It's been a wild couple of weeks. Just a full month since we first learned everything was about to change I believe. Things had an impetus and a velocity of their own, so we kept our hands within the car, took a gasp and rode it up and down and around again in loopety-loops.

So...as the dust settles...

1. Andrew has his new job. He has the raddest Blue Origin (I just can't do the B.O. acronym here, so we call it "BLUE" for short) swag for friends and family. He seems excited. He commutes by bike some days.His work is "secret" so even though I wouldn't understand it anyways, he still doesn't think he should tell me about it in case I suddenly acquire an understanding of engineering, math or physics during one of Chaya's preschool hours. Seems like good nonsense all around.

2. We have a new "home." Apartment lease signed. Items moved. Boxes unpacked. Place routinely cleaned and trashed and filled with four year old exuberance.

 I prefer this space to our old house. It's cozier and tidier in its way. Andrew - who has roughly a bajillion times more pants and shirts, ten times as many shoes, five times as many hats, probably more jewelry and the list goes on well into the four bikes he scaled back from five - is less sold. But I think once the garage is fully handled, he'll come around.

And the playground outside our unit is a hit.

3. The old house? Well, we have a realtor anyways. The lightning-fast push to market doesn't really seem to be panning out.

Serious about selling houses!

Our adorably cheeze ball up-and-comer realtor (who also owns a video production firm AND a cross-fit gym, no joke) still seems to know what he's doing and is handling a lot of stuff for us. But all the little details of quotes and arguing with contractors is still a headache. Always another shoe to drop. Must be working off Andrew's stash since I'm wearing my only pair.


4. Chaya has a new preschool!! This is huge. The first week of searching was discouraging to say the least. A few tours of child-factories blended with research on co-operatives that met roughly a couple of hours a week and required not only class participation (that part sounded fun enough) but also monthly evening meetings and two hour parent education seminars.

Her current place is a non-profit with a similar philosophy and structure as Skagit Arts. It was previously filled up, but a space opened the day that we were touring. The space is for 2.5 hours a morning five beautiful days a week. It's such a relief to have Chaya in a place that aligns with her educational sweet spot and out with "FRIENDS." It's more structured, a little less family magic. But it's cool. And yesterday she brought home a giant construction paper pizza that she carried beaming with pride and pomp. So I think we all know it's working out.

So far, the preschool has not yielded immediate social opportunity for her shy and slightly isolated mamma to trowl for new BFFs. It is basically - so far - the only place where I am actually forced to be with other people, so it's a likely candidate for sources of acquaintance. I can appreciate how relocating can be particularly hard on stay at home parents in that regard. Every other family member has at least some outside place they're forced to be until they've made acquaintances. A stay at home 'rent has a lot more research to do and no inertia to lean on (thank god for Facebook mom groups for the extra lifting on some of that legwork and will be seeking out church and the like ASAP). At any rate.

There's a minor opportunity in the milling before classes open and end, but everyone seems pretty absorbed in themselves and it's hard to even make eye contact to start a sympathetic moment. I'm making do with awkward hellos and goodbyes and occasional comments on children's awesome shoes and whatnot..Today I exchanged a warm moment where I asked how old somebody else's baby was Five months! It was magic! So that's about where I am.


 Putting myself out there in dribs and drabs before growing tired and gorging on some metaphorical Ben and Jerry's pints on the sofa. Friending is to your married thirties what dating is to one's single twenties. Making friends is HARD.

I mean for me. Some people do it with the same reflexive shrug as sneezing then layer everyone nearby with hot fudge hugs for saying "bless you." Some people.

Speaking of: one of those very some kind of people infused our new home-county with his inimitable presence this last weekend - our second weekend as Rentonites.

Fidel, he of the Northampton hosting and old-dear-friending fame, was in a neighboring town helping his uncles build a deck. Because this is what family does. I've never helped any family members build decks. I feel negligent to say the least. But he's a good relative. So he builds decks when the call goes out.

 Meanwhile, our little familette had long ago purchased tickets to a Caspar Babypants  raver in Bellingham. Driving to Bellingham for a show made sense when we lived in Mt Vernon. Arguably a little less sense when we live basically in the area that Caspar Babypants actually lives and very often performs BUT, all those familiar faces of Bellingham and Mt Vernon... and we already had tickets. Not exactly sure how but I managed to sell "hey you wanna ditch your family deck building duties in order to ride in awful traffic for 2-3 hours each way so that you can see a kid's concert with us??" to the gamest East Coaster ever, and we brought Fidel along.

It was all the magic and then some. Chaya dancing like a little raver girl with no regard for rhythm or propriety (just like her mommy in her teen years - Dance Master, per HNTW local noise band, thank you very much). Lunch at the burrito joint I used to go to with my dad when I was a highschooler. Dessert at the land of heavenly gelato and deep dark chocolate feels.

Somehow Andrew managed to throw a bike race on top of the Chuckanuts in there to really give the Wright spin on the PNW. It was beautiful up there. Pacific Northwest was all like, "Behold biyatch" and so we did. While dodging enduro cyclists panting up the hill.

A looooong, shockingly pleasant trudge through 405 traffic (forget location; companionship is everything).

Drumroll please...The grand unveiling of our home to an outside party: house officially warmed.

Chaya's matinee performance, during which she held court and showed off and told tales to her rapt audience of parents and mommy's-friend (who, she will have you know, likes candy and who should be given candy immediately, damnit mommy what's wrong with you GET CANDY FOR MOMMY'S FRIEND NOW and who may also have imaginary chicken nuggets but NOT imaginary ice cream because that's for mommy and one it goes). And Indian food at the *one place* we've discovered and formed meaningful connection to in this new town of ours.

The place feels real now. And I can't help but smile for having had the privilege of sharing a slice of meaning in my life with a meaningful person from another corner of it.

Damn, I've missed that. When I was in my teens early twenties, I had several far-flung friends who visited me every year. They'd crash on my couch or a dorm room freespace or wherever the winds took them. I'd drag them along my daily path showing them every little shiny piece of my life like a kid who has THE BEST new toy for show and tell the stories of me - all giddy and brimming with excitement. In between we'd reaffirm our bond with our own personally meaningful rituals shared just between us. The new and the old, silver and gold, all mixed together in one beautiful gorgeous breathtaking mess. Movies or food or or games or late nights just talking until the sun rose.  There'd be mutually remembered spaces in each town. And new places to discover. They'd visit. I'd visit. Even if I moved around a lot, I was always a month or two away from one of these deep immersions of lasting selves.

As communities cemented and life got more hectic and time demanding, these trips and these visits trickled down to an array of family visits and a once a half-decade homecoming/reunion or what have you. The times between visits drift longer and longer. Even in the most rooted moments, these people outside the day to day are precious. While their presence never lacks from my life, their sheer physical being brings infinite layers to it when I'm so gifted.

There's a special indescribable joy of introducing a friend from one space to a friend from another. Radiant and shining and saying "awesome person: here's another awesome person You whom I love, here is another you whom I love. Let's all hug and celebrate or politely sniff each other and whatever." Little wee glow of discovery and excitement for a sense of greater self than the individual context of the current, while also bringing a reality to the current in the showing of it.

I think there are still a toddler's handful of forever-friends like that laying in potential, but we've all got our family/job/whatever calendars to juggle on top of our budgets and vacation days so it's way less common and always more smooshed. It's interesting to realize some of the loneliness of these thirties isn't the nomadic lifestyle that keeps yanking me out of cemented communities, but  sometimes the roots that make it harder to flit in between places how I once did.

Maybe in time it'll all be group family vacations. Yadda yadda.. I hope. After you fit in all the family, it's hard to find extra time and budget let even for a one person trip. It's a goal, though.

We shall see. Chaya ages. Life gets different. I start saving for whatever trips I can squeeze out and clearing out a space in any future house for visitors.

And we continue to settle

Making that transition from "long trip in a hotel that has all our stuff" and "home" maybe involves community. Familiar restaurants. Checkout attendants who recognize Chaya. So on and so forth.

There will be churches and synagogues and doctors and sports teams and untold new waves of life and living. Chaya will have new besties every handful of months. And parties for children we'll never see again will pepper our google calendars. And life will turn and contexts will evolve.

Hopefully some of these forever-folks will keep flitting in and out and deepening every hue.

Meantime, this Stay at Home 'Rent is gonna break from her ambitions and drag the family to a Drag Queen Storytime at the Seattle Center. King County gonna bring it!