I've lived in eight different states, have been married twice (second time is the charm), and am not particularly fond of Chinese food. At 42, I have almost let go of my death grip on a misplaced sense of eternal youth.
My family and I moved from Washington, DC to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007. After four years here, I can finally say that the East Bay is home, though I still dream about the brick and marble of DC. I have taken the fog, the hills, and the flats and made them mine, though on cold Berkeley summer nights (more November than July) I sometimes imagine myself in shorts and a sleeveless shirt swimming through thick air on the walk from Dupont Circle to Georgetown. I miss summer. I miss the policy wonks. I miss runs in Rock Creek Park on sodden spring mornings. Still, like the past, my version of Washington exists in my mind, easily conjured and idealized.
In my current life, the life of a stay at home, I clean. I cook. I monitor the small mundane things that hold my family's world together. I walk the Berkeley avenues in the chill and unfiltered sunshine. I hold my son’s hand as we cross the street and I make my plans for the next stage of my life, out of the house and in the world. We have time. We have cool nights and Bay views and I have cultivated the Berkeley crunch.
So call me in between East Coast and West Coast, somewhere on the cusp of straightlaced and funky, an amalgam of experience and pure will. Still here, with plans in place.
Dying to know more? Contact me, read my résumé (currently under revision), puzzle over my 38 facts, or see how honest I can be. And if you must . . . stalk me.
revised 9/21/2011