I made the move from Northern California to New England a few months ago. It was a big move that involved being without furniture for nearly 10 days; horses transported via a FedEx cargo plane; and holing up in a Westport hotel with two cats and two dogs for several days waiting to close on my new place.
Once the movers arrived (with seemingly many more boxes than I'd put on the van in California), my life for weeks became about unpacking, sorting and unpacking. The process was careful at first--cut open the tape, lovingly unwrap and put away the contents. Hundreds of paper cuts and many sore muscles later, this devolved into briskly slicing through cardboard (often slicing through fingers) - upending boxes and literally throwing the contents sans newspaper into the closest drawer, closet, whatever.
Things have somewhat come together over the past few months - people ask how it's progressing and I can only grin and tell them it'll be a while. The house while in good repair had previously been owned by a family who obviously didn't put high value on maintenance, cleanliness, or style. Bats kept up a lively residence in the attic; beetles and prehistorically large spiders dominated the horse barn; caterpillars crept up the many white oaks on the property - multiplying rapidly and chewing their way through the foliage; weird downspouts when it rained appeared from windows, ceilings and chimneys; and the well promptly dried up and quit in the middle of summer.
All this I'm sure makes you wonder why the hell I bought this place right? After all, this was hardly a well plotted out operation. I came to the idea of moving cross country last year on a walk one day - had never been to Connecticut but thought it sounded nice. After flying back and forth between coasts several times I finally settled on a small horse farm in the Lower Connecticut River Valley. Mild weather and reasonable proximity to both NYC and Boston brought me to the area - but the house was chosen almost on a whim (we'll get into that later).
My reasons for leaving Northern California are numerous. The most pressing is that Marin County, where I'm from, has suffered badly over the past decade. Once a pastoral, bohemian haven - it has evolved into Hollywood North. Midwesterners, pilgrim actors from LA, and techno developers have crammed in, sending real estate prices skyrocketing - and the quality of life into free-fall.
The big payoff here in New England is that, for me, time seems to have rewound. The Lower Connecticut River Valley, where I spend much time, is like Northern California 20 years ago - except it's near glorious Manhattan. Towns like Chester, Essex, and Old Saybrook are breeding grounds for artists, small business, and dreamers. Horses live on farms, and in backyards - just like they did not so long ago in Northern California.
So since I've come here as a pilgrim in a manner of speaking, I discover new things all the time - so I've started a new blog called NE Journal - a log of my experiences, how the east coast compares to the west, what I come across that I think is worth a few words or more - - things that I think will be interesting to others.
Find my NE Journal at http://leberpr.blogs.com/ne_journal/




