journal-09/13/99

09/13/99

For the first time since my grandmother's death, I haven't thought constantly about her on one of the special days-- Feb. 11, the day she died... Mother's day... her birthday-- such is the case, today is her birthday.

And the first thought I had of it came just now, at around 7:45pm. And the only reason I thought of it now is because I happened to open my calendar and turn the page... and there in big bold letters, "Mur-Mur's birthda."

Feb. 11, 1997 started a snowball of change in my life... and it hasn't slowed down since then. More things have changed in my life since her death than have ever changed in my whole life. How bizarre. I'd never thought of it that way, but it makes sense.

When she died-- everything stable, everything that I'd always known as "roots" and "home" and "forever" changed, turned upside down. And since then my life hasn't taken root anywhere else. I've just been floating around from place to place. This has been the closest I've come to really calling another place home and feeling like it's home. Nashville felt like home to me, but I also lived there (off and on for college) for five years.

I can't say that Grafton feels like home, nor this house, nor Massachusetts, but maybe it's New England in general.

I've fallen in love with Maine, by the way.

We'll see if I still love it here after I've thawed out from my first New England winter.

And then there's always Mendocino floating in the back of my head... How I'd love to be there again...

(p.s. A year ago today, I wrote my first journal entry here at tritton.com although my webpage didn't actually launch until the 17th. What should I do for my one year anniversary on the web?)