Back to the Future

I had only two goals for the month of June, but they were both biggies. No. 1: move home to Terra Nova. No. 2: leave my job as magazine editor at San Diego State University to work fulltime on my book about the Cedar Fire.

The moving part stretched out over a couple of weeks. As soon as the new house passed final inspection, on Thursday the 16th, we started hauling stuff out of the rental. After a full weekend of that, it was back to work for 5 days, followed by another weekend marathon of moving and cleaning.

But then, finally, we were home again. Everything was a jumble, of course, piles of boxes and bags all around. And since we've replaced so little furniture as yet, the house literally echoed with our voices and the dogs' barking. But it didn't matter. We were back, finally able to reclaim the future we'd barely begun when the fire came. Only 7 months in the house in the canyon that had so raised our spirits, and then 20 months to rebuild it. Dorothy said it best: There's no place like home.

Three days after we turned in the keys to the rental house, amid a flurry of cards, gifts and farewell parties, I turned in the keys to my office, as well. It's felt weird this last week, not going to work, but it's been a healthy decompression period so far. It's so satisfying just to unpack and sort things out, and in the sorting to resume some semblance of an ordered life. It's such a luxury to suddenly have time for simple necessities.

Today, for example, I finally washed my car and had the oil changed, two of a million things I've been putting off for weeks. It took longer than usual. There was a real crowd at Jiffy Lube, and the guy who checked me in apologized from the get go. I'm sorry, he said, it's going to be about 35 minutes. That's o.k., I replied, I'm not in any hurry today.