I’ve been in the US for nearly 2 weeks, and it’s mostly weird to be here. I don’t know if that’s because I’m in the Carolinas instead of Michigan or because I’ve been away from the US for so long. I’ve read that it only takes about 5 years for someone who has moved abroad to find things have changed so much in their home country that when they return it’s like coming to a foreign country. One that SHOULD feel like home, SHOULD smell like home, SHOULD behave like home, but doesn’t. I’ve not been back for 4.5 years, so close enough, plus coming to a different place, with different homes and routes and trees and smells to get used to, makes it all just weird.
The thing that is NOT weird is spending time with my mom, and with my sister and her family. Despite the amount of time that goes by, that part never gets weird (partly because we’re all already weird, haha). My mom’s house is really nice, if essentially too big for her, and too crammed with all the stuff that she wasn’t able to let go of when she moved from her huge house in Michigan. She says it’s because she didn’t know where she’d end up, so she didn’t know how much to get rid of, but let’s be real: letting go of a lifetime’s accumulation of stuff is hard. You don’t do it until you’re really forced to. It’s the end of a row of row houses, and overlooks a deep, woody ravine. All the houses in the neighborhood of rowhouses are very similar, so it’s not the most exciting neighborhood, but it’s new and well-kept, and quiet. She’s just over the border at the bottom end of Charlotte, on the South Carolina side, right next to a large lake.
My sister’s home, which she also moved to during the pandemic, is also new, and very nice; a huge single-family villa in a neighborhood with nearly no trees and huge houses spaced out quite far from each other, which makes it look as though they’ve been plopped down on the lots. The HOA also chose fescue for the lawns and it doesn’t turn green until later, so right now, the entire expanse is a sort of crunchy beige expanse with big homes spaced along the sides. Sarah’s house also backs up to woods, though, and nice big trees, which is great. They have some privacy in their backyard because of that. She’s on the southeast side of Charlotte, but in North Carolina, so now I can say I’ve added two more states to my “visited” list.
We spent the first week I was here driving all over the place doing fun stuff; mostly shopping and window shopping. We went to several HUGE antique malls (Sleepy Poet, The Depot at Gibson Mill, and Catawba River), all of which were overwhelmingly stuffed full of things to buy (or in our case, mostly, to look at). The Depot is 80,000 square feet; the others are 60,000. Insane! Mom took me to an American grocery store, and we’ve been to 3 malls. I’ve found pants, and shoes, and Christmas presents for my family. At the outlet mall, I found a Coach purse on super clearance, so decided it was a sign and bought it. 🙂 I’ve gotten lists of things from my kids that they want me to bring back (my husband just wants a “good Kentucky bourbon”) and I still have some grocery items for my own list to get.
This week I’ve been working upstairs at my mom’s and it’s worked very well. The internet connection is fine, and I’m able to work, and the nicest part is that by lunchtime everyone in Sweden has left for the day so I’m able to work in peace for the entire afternoon. Yesterday I concentrated on a huge layout job and got 18 pages of a 20-page magazine done. I’m finishing that off today and sending it to review. It’s been hard to catch up, because we’re so busy and so many requests are constantly coming in, and we all have so much to do already. We’re struggling with the workload especially when it comes to the big projects on top of our daily ticket jobs. I’m working here next week, too, then mom and Sarah and I are driving up to Boston, and I’ll be working in the Boston office for 4.5 days before I go back to Sweden. Hard to believe nearly half my month is already gone!
Tonight, mom and I are going over to Sarah’s for Tom’s homemade pizza for dinner. It’s her daughter Danely’s last day; she leaves in the morning for 6 months in Japan. It’s also Sarah’s birthday tomorrow, and even though we already gave her presents at her birthday dinner a couple of nights ago, I suspect we’ll head over there again for cake and ice cream. I’m hoping to get back to the mall again, and get a massage as my shoulders are killing me. We have plans for the weekend, too: visiting a little town called Wauxhaw, and on Sunday, we’re doing glass fusion art at Hot Glass Alley. Fun!
Mood: contented
Music: clickety keys