a brave new garden: See Ya Later, Woodford

Our home on Woodford Street is now filled only with echoes. We made a trip back to Virginia a couple of weeks ago to button the house up and explore the possibility of selling it. The real estate market, we learned, is still wedged tightly in the crapper, and now we're flushing out the details of becoming landlords and renting our home out.

I was surprised that I didn't really feel any surge of sentimentality as we ushered the last evidence of ourselves out of our old house. It was our home for ten years, but it no longer feels like home to me. I did feel momentarily wistful when Arlo scooped up a plastic spoon (a holdover of last season's plant markers) and started digging in one of the raised beds, which was filled with pert, healthy strawberry plants. This would have been a summer where Arlo might have better understood the garden, might have really loved picking fruits and vegetables from their earthy vines as much as his mama. It may still happen, but it won't happen in that backyard.

The strawberry plants there were green and full and dotted with blooms. They seemed to be doing just fine without any sort of assistance from me whatsoever, and that brought me a certain sense of security, of resolve. Life goes on, you know? There will be new life in that garden. There will be new life in that house. It's all good.

We just signed a new lease on a flat in St. Louis. We've never actually lived in "the city" before. Yes, Fredericksburg was technically a city, but it was really more of a small town, where you know the first name of the barista at your fave coffee joint; where you're always bumping into a co-worker or former co-worker, or a co-worker's kid; where the waitresses in your fave restaurants unknowingly tuck a surprise dessert into your take-out bag. Our new place is decidedly in the most urban setting we've ever lived. I'm excited.

And maybe that's why leaving Woodford doesn't feel especially sad. We're too excited about what comes next. It's difficult to feel downhearted about the past when the future looks so fun.

Two Falls ago when I was pregnant we planted a dogwood tree for the baby. And now, I will exercise a small amount of nostalgia here...