Every day I set out walking in a different direction, my fluffy mini-poodle mutt tethered to my wrist. The first mile is all sniffs. The second, we hit our stride. There are brick houses and pocket parks, statues to Scottish poets and war heroes, plaques about wagon trails and nuclear strikes. A mishmash of history; a crossroads for all kinds of folks in search of fortune, freedom, farmland.
The birds are active and the winds quiet. There are few hills here at the prairie’s edge. We stroll past the rodeo grounds, past the botanic gardens, around the lake. Geese eye my mutt with rancor in their beaks, snapping.
Odd: Everything we owned fell into place in the little house we’re renting, like we’d lived here once before. In some ways Cheyenne feels more like home than our old home did. A pair of mourning doves haunt the fir tree behind our bedroom window, coo-cooing the day away. A pair of morning doves used to live in the pines outside my childhood room, too.
The air is crisp and thin--six-thousand-feet thin. The cold streaks through the morning light; in the afternoon, the sunlight warms pockets everywhere it strikes. The weather is more mutable, too. Mutable as me. Eighty degrees one day, enormous fluffy snowflakes the next.
“We’re living high on the oyster, here,” my husband said as we sat down to dinner, slanting his head. Mixing his idioms: High on the hog; the world our oyster. He’s onto something.
There’s liberation in starting over. In finding new places to stroll, new gutters to clean, new restaurants to try. We’re settling into a routine--N can walk to work now, which beats the hell out of an hour-long commute, morning and night. I’ve scoped out pottery studios, snuffled out the plant stores, poked my snout into little churches, wandered around neighborhoods in all the cardinal directions.
I can hear the bugle sound “Reveille'' in the morning and “Taps” as we lie down in bed. The Air Force base is a stone’s throw away. The helicopters fly in formation in threes and fives. Some afternoons, the sound of the Star Spangled Banner carries across the sun porch, puddling in my lap as I sit in my office nook, and it’s almost enough to make a gal think about taking off her hat.
Settled, settling. Nested, a co-worker described it. Feathered, plumed, we’re resting now. It’s been months in the making, this move. Months of boxing, packing, labeling, sloughing, rearranging. A blur.
But we’re settled. Settled like silt in the stream, leaves in the corners of the patio, petals falling from cherry blossom trees. It’s a beautiful thing, falling into place.
high on the oyster
Hey DJ, I was just thinking about you and instead of reaching out thru Foster's Discord, I figured I'd see what you've been up to writing-wise... and I'm so glad I did. Your writing of your settling in feels soft and right-sized.
Did you know the sounds of the Air Force base would be ever-present? Was this a concern or a lovely thing at first?
If you want, I'm open to hearing how your work is going, too, now that you're settled/settling in.
Maybe see you in Season 3?