Solstice 1993

Seaford, DE 19973
12 December, 1993

Dear Ones:

Another year of changes is in full flight. I sit again thinking of friends and family, desiring instant and easy communion with all of you, but stuck with our evolutionary limitations requiring written language instead of telepathy. Where I am sitting, by the way, is about three hundred miles south of where I was this time last year, and thereby hangs a tale, of course. Catherine and I were fortunate to have experienced simultaneous mid-life crises, which, in a certain sense, turns out to be better than the much overrated simultaneous orgasm. For one thing, it lasts longer, and for another, shit happens afterward. (Not that there is anything wrong with deep sleep) We took stock of our lives, personal and professional, and decided that while our Connecticut existence was not at all bad, it lacked serious chance of dramatic improvement in the foreseeable future. Particularly troublesome were the long hours of working and commuting for both of us, and the relative lack of time for the kids and each other, and the need for Kevlar bullet proof vests. We had come very close last fall to moving to Northern California, but a good job for Catherine was not available, so we passed. Then a wily Headhunter presented us an option in a small town in rural southern Delaware ("Slower Delaware"), with Catherine working in a community clinic, and myself working as Chief of the Emergency Department at the same community hospital. Echoes of our very positive experience in rural Vermont were strong in both our minds. We interviewed, and decided to take the plunge. We loaded up the Conestoga wagons in September, and moved into a ranch house on the Nanticoke River. Actually, the Movers from Hell, Inc. did the move, but that is another saga. Catherine deserves full credit for seeing the potential of this house, which was darkly panelled inside, unoccupied for a year, and musty, but situated on a secluded woodland lot with great views of wetlands, and a quiet tidal river flowing by in the back yard. Our real estate shopping was actually quite straightforward, since this was essentially the only option. After this place, the choices degenerated to "Double Wide" Trailers on lots convenient to the Landfill. But a ranch house I never imagined. I keep looking around for Ben Cartwright and Hoss. Come to think of it, Hop Sing would be useful about now. Our first walk-through was not promising...

Me: "NEXXXXT!!"
She: "Oh, it's great!"
Me: "What was in that brownie you just ate? I will NEVER live in this house."
She: "The lot is perfect. The house has potential."
Me: "Potential is just another word for Chores. Boy Chores."
She: "That's no problem, Honey. You're handy!"
Me: "That is only Grade-C Bullshit. Is that the best you can do? Anyway, I can't live in a Ranch house. It's immoral to sleep on the same floor where you eat and watch TV. It says so in the Bible. Deuteronomy, I think."
She: "That is only Grade-D Bullshit, and I know it when I hear it. I am the East-Coast Distributor."
He: "OK, not the Bible. Must have been in Kant, or Kirkegaard, one of those guys. Ask any WASP north of the Mason-Dixon Line."
She: "We're buying this house."
He: "I see."

We've dumped a mere fortune into it since that dark day, removing panelling, sheetrocking, painting, removing ghastly aluminum sliding doors and mouldering jalousies, and replacing them with windows we can see through. Apart from the lack of elevated sleeping quarters, it is starting to resemble a house. We are still proud owners of our New Haven house, and are discovering the tax advantages of absentee landlordism without tenants, and accelerated depreciation. Kids, don't try this at home. We'll count ourselves lucky to get out at a mere thirty percent loss.
Meanwhile, back in Delaware, we are becoming accustomed to the change in landscape. The wildlife and topography are sufficiently weird to my eye to be interesting. The land is very flat, so that views can be obtained by standing on the car's bumper, and craning the neck slightly. The animals are different, too. We have buzzards here. Big ones. No, really BIG. They float overhead like pterodactyls and eat large dead things. Out back we have kingfishers, all manner of woodpeckers, including a huge pileated woodpecker, owls, and best of all, great blue herons. Otters swim in our river, and a box turtle has been seen in the woods around the house. The trees are oak, holly and pine, the oaks with leaves like placemats, and the pines with cones like eggplants. Leaf raking is a chore requiring mechanical help. I have got to get a garden tractor to deal with it. Yeahhhh. That's the ticket... and I'll be needing a pickup truck, and a chain saw....maybe this won't be so bad.
Hannah raised a legitimate concern before we moved when she asked "What language do they speak in Delaware, Daddy?"
"They speak Bubba, Honey, but don't worry, you'll pick it up in no time."
They do have a funny regionalism peculiar to the eastern shore, saying tho "ou" in "out" like Canadians. Aoouuuit is the best spelling approximation I can manage. Otherwise it is pure southern drawl. We may live twenty miles north of the Mason Dixon Line, but the culture leans heavily over it and tries to blend in.
The kids seem to be thriving in the public school, where enough Mainline Philly refugees hold teaching positions to provide a local reality check. Hannah is in second grade, reads up a storm, and draws local wildlife in a journal. Everett is in Kindergarten, and is practicing to be a sensational singer, as he says. He's keeping his day job, for now. Nat and Michele are 16 and 17. Nat is slugging it out in mid high school doldrums, and Michele looking through the thinning mists to college choices. UDel is a possibility close enough yet far enough.
Work for me has been a real shift, to single coverage Emergency Room, with the full gamut of trauma, pediatrics, and sociopathy to keep up with, and a plate full of administrative challenges. But, remarkably, I get more time at home than I ever did in CT, and the change has been a real spur to renewed interest in studying medicine. For fun we have the Chesapeake to explore aboard Kathmandu, and I am considering taking flying lessons for a winter project. Dr. Mann gave me a ride in his Mooney-bird, and may have created a monster.
Catherine is enjoying her new, quieter life very much, speaking lots of Spanish to her clinic clients, and catching babies at a less frantic pace. She is heavily into Yoga, and getting amazingly strong and limber. She means to start keeping bees again in the spring, and is back to organic Desem breadmaking on a twice weekly basis.
So, in short, (too late) we think we made the right move for all concerned, and we're setting about making the best of it. We are happy to be closer to some family members for visits, and remain keen to entertain old friends, if any can make their way here.
And so, as the motion of our battered sphere carries us through the longest night, and back to the triumph of light and warmth over darkness and inadequate window defrosters, we find ourselves endlessly renewed, working less and liking it more, well supplemented with anti-oxidant factors, reduced in fat intake, and therefore fat content (really!), cheering Joycelin Elders' candor, and hissing at the general recoil afterwards, hopeful for health-care reform, but not convinced yet, practicing celestial navigation and dead-reckoning, amazed that bell bottoms are already back in style, composting and growing organically, waging peace and beginning with justice, chipping away at that novel-in-a-box and enjoying the finest of simple pleasures. We hope that you are doing the same. We welcome visits, letters, calls and testimonials to our superiors. Keep in touch. Telepathy doesn't work. Give it up. Write, call or visit, or feel guilty. I am against guilt in principle, so you really have no alternative.

Cheers!