Holiday Greetings from the Middle

As our second Christmas season in "the middle" comes to a close, upon reflection, I would say our lives have changed and remained the same over the past year. Much as I suppose most peoples' have, unless you live an extraordinarily exciting existence or have been befallen by something unfortunate.

In the "change" column falls a new position for Dana as a marketing communications manager with a regional health insurance company. It is bittersweet, of course, as it tangibly heralds the end of our 19-year business. If you've had a business as long as we had, you know it's tough to let it go. We think back to our beginnings in a spare bedroom through hiring our first designer, to travels around the country, and even internationally, serving clients. And then, back to working at the kitchen table. It's a lot like a life, I suppose. You start small, then grow, have "children", go places and see things until one day you end up spending most of your time back home. It's been a good change for him, though. It's not good for a people-person to be isolated for long. He's thriving.

I'm still working at the agency that brought me to Illinois. For me, the biggest lesson after working for myself for so long is navigating workplace personalities. Fortunately, I got to take a break on my very first cruise, a trip with my cousin for one of her milestone birthdays. I think we got more than most on this three-day journey to the Bahamas with rain and high seas then sunshine and smooth sailing. We had a blast. The jury is still out as to whether I'm a cruise fan or not. But, at least another check on the bucket list.

Griffin is now driving. As anyone who's gone through this experience knows, there are few things stranger than sitting in the passenger seat while your baby takes the wheel. What a metaphor! I thank God for his cautious nature - he drives like an old lady (maybe because his teacher was an old man). He's got some best buddies and they "play together" on Xbox Live. I remember when that phrase described having fun in the same room together. We are preparing to prepare for college and the clock is ticking louder in my ears each month. And even though we miss the smaller class sizes of our rural Colorado school and the opportunities to participate in more sports, attending a very challenging school seems to be a good trade off. Only time will tell.

Zoe became a teen this year. School comes easily to her (disorganization not withstanding) but choosing a direction and sticking with it, not so much. I just keep telling myself this is the time of discovering who you are, what you're good at and what you enjoy most. She's off soccer and onto basketball - she got to train this summer with the University of Illinois women's team and her 7th grade Bulldogs team went to the state championship. A mixed blessing because now any other activity (such as the ballet and lyrical classes I paid registration fees for) pale by comparison. Sigh. This too shall pass (right? Right?).

A sad change was saying goodbye to our not-so-old friend Henry. Our lab developed degenerative nerve disease in his hind quarters and, by the end, was barely able to stand. He was nine, which is young for his breed; then again, his predecessor Mojo lived to be 15. Poor Henry - he got the short end of the average. We also adopted out our two show rabbits as 4H seems to be a distant memory. We are now down to one feisty cat.

Though I'd made a previous trip, the rest of the family got their first dose of Chicago - Portillo's, Lou Malnatti's and Navy Pier. Another change: Our address. Again. It's a larger place and we could end up buying it, once we sell the Colorado house which is finally on the market. I'm ready to quit putting things in and out of boxes.

Because sometimes, especially in the midst of big life changes, you need things to stay the same, we spent spring break traveling back to Colorado to reconnect with old friends, hot springs, fly fishing and chair lifts. Over Labor Day we again went to Lake Michigan, riding crazy big surf and absorbing the particular charm of Southeastern Michigan. And, as we did last year, we have the mom-in-law here for Christmas. But this time, she's staying the winter. It's nice to have real time with someone we have lived far from for too long.

So, as we sweep up the needles from the store-bought Christmas tree every few minutes - and remember our years trudging through knee deep snow to cut a fresh tree in the national forest - we give thanks for a year during which we further settled into the middle while still experiencing new adventures. And really, whatever address graces your Christmas cards, life in the middle isn't such a bad place to be. All our best for 2012.

Photo by Christina Rutz.

You can never go back.

In the summer of 2010, when we moved from our peaceful, picturesque town in Colorado to the micro-urban environs of Champaign, Illinois I promised my kids we would return for spring break. Not that it did a whole lot to stem the pointed silences I was being treated to by the sulky teen, but I certainly had to pull everything out of my parental bag of tricks to make the move as tolerable as possible. And so, when March arrived and winter was beginning to cede its grip on our new Midwestern home, we packed up the thermal socks, boots and ski goggles and headed back west.

We spent a day skiing, and another at Mt. Princeton Hot Springs (it is always amazing to me that you can get a tan in Colorado even when the temperatures are not all that bathing-suit friendly). Then, it was time to spend some quality time with old friends. Admittedly there were those who really haven't missed a beat, although we know they've missed us. Their lives are otherwise unchanged since we left. But others shared their plans to move on from the town as soon as degrees were completed, children graduated and so on. People with whom we shared a love of that valley, who shared our opinion of its Shangri-la like qualities were admitting the bloom might be coming off the rose. The economy can be very tough on a small town. My daughter, an avid downtown shopper remarked on how many stores had closed. Parents fretted over proposed budget cuts putting school athletics in jeopardy. Even my husband, whom I worried about almost as much as the teen in terms of adjusting to leaving said "you don't realize how small this place is until you leave it."

This is all to say perhaps leaving what you think of as the perfect home comes at just the right time for you. I have said sometimes you choose home and other times it chooses you. The past seven years have taught me that. I chose this lovely hamlet as home and it was just that for years. When the time came for us to move on, it was very difficult. Was something wrong with our choice? Was it even our doing that sent us there? Would we have ended up where we are now (which, it turns out, is terrific in a number of different ways) if we hadn't chosen to make Colorado our home? I certainly can't imagine coming to the Midwest from Dallas (with all due respect). I just don't think it would have happened.

The truth is, you can never go back. In order to move forward you can't look back. Maybe it's by design that when you go back, it's just never the same. It's smaller, with a different rythm, a tad worn around the edges. Because if you can't go back to my picturesque little town, who could go back anywhere?

On the drive home, the teen brought up looking forward to being back with new friends. If that doesn't prove my theory, nothing will.

Winter, Four Ways

As we begin to see a little melt off here in my new Midwestern home, I'm inspired to reflect a bit about winters I've spent in other places, at other times in my life. Here, winters are much like those in New York/New Jersey, where I lived for 25 years. But I haven't lived in that region for a long time so I've forgotten about things like dirty, ugly snow on the side of the roads and trying to walk anywhere when sidewalks are only 50 percent cleared, at best.

Here, then, are some reflections on winters past.

Thoughts about an impending snowstorm:

• East Coast—*%#@ my car will be snowplowed in. Again.
• Midwest—Maybe I should invest in that snow blower.
• Colorado—Righteous! Where's my snowboard?
• Dallas—What's a snow shovel?

On winter footwear:

• East Coast & Midwest—Thank God for fashionable boots.
• Colorado—Thank God for snowshoes.
• Dallas—Thank God for closed-toe pumps.

On keeping warm at home:

• East Coast & Midwest—Throw another log on the fire!
• Colorado—Load up that wood stove.
• Dallas—Where is that fireplace remote?

On what to do in the snow:

• East Coast & Midwest — Find a hill and go sledding.
• Colorado — Find a mountain and go skiing.
• Dallas — Find a laptop and go shopping.

Overheard on Groundhog Day:

• East Coast — That &^# rodent is never right.
• Midwest — Oh, that Punxsutawney Phil is just the cutest, dontcha know.
• Colorado — Who cares? It's sunny all year long here!
• Dallas — Let's book a flight to Cancun!

Maybe I'll have the pleasure of adding other places to this list before I reach my end. Let's just hope it's after the kids have flown the coop.

A new year. A new life.

By Dori, A Round Barn at the University of Illinois.

For most people a new year is symbolic of a new start. I know I always feel just a little bit like I'm beginning a do-over, every year, without fail. This year I, along with the rest of the family, am starting over in a new state, a new region for that matter. The Midwest.

I have no ties here. Well, none very recent (supposedly my granddad went to school in Independence, MO with Harry and Bess Truman). And I can't help but laugh when I think of how I got here. I kept forging westward. But the universe keeps pulling me back. I went to Texas, then moved back to New Jersey, where I grew up. I moved back to Texas and stayed awhile until discovering, and quickly relocating to Colorado. I didn't get to stay as long as I wanted too before I ended up in Illinois. What in the world is the world trying to tell me?

It's my own fault, really. I have wanderlust. It's not an easy quality to live with. I adore the idea of staying put, living in the same house for decades, welcoming children and grandchildren home. But I just can't do it. I want to wander. And that's not great for kids, really. I'm honestly not that bohemian to be able to pull that off with panache.

And so I've made up my mind to set down roots here. Really. I have a plan. After all, I've got kids to put through college and retirement savings to catch up on. So I have to hang up my wandering shoes for a while. But, still I dream. I think about the days when the kids have graduated (God willing) college and Dana and I retire. This is not a bad place to live. With, perhaps, some traveling when winter gets a little long or summer a bit too humid. If our state can stay solvent, that might actually be a plan. For now.

The Meeks of the Midwest

In the past year, our journey took a 180 degree turn. Now we're living in the Midwest.

As you can imagine, that kind of about face doesn't happen out of the blue. A year or so ago, we had our Colorado home on the market because we had our eye on a neat little ranch on 40 acres nearby. The house wasn't much to write home about but the view was unparalleled. And it was close to town. But first we had to sell our house; in a rural market that is a completely different animal.

And then came the Great Recession.

To make a long story very short, missing out on that real estate opportunity turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After 17 years, our business was no longer able to support both of us. And, because the only job opportunities in a small town (if you don't have a teaching degree) tend to involve soda machines, it became sadly evident that it was time to move on.

Some adventures you choose and some are chosen for you. While moving to the wilds of the Rocky Mountains was a choice we made, our new adventure wasn't one we had in our plans. But you know what they say, "life happens while you're busy making plans." And so, after months of seeking a position that would keep us in Colorado, it turns out the best fit was in Champaign, Illinois, of all places. We have no ties to the Midwest, though my grandfather hailed from Independence, Missouri (went to school with Harry Truman!). We've never even visited other than layovers at O'Hare. And yet, we really like this place that would never have been on our radar if life didn't "happen".

So we've traded weekends in Denver for those in Chicago. Mountain camping trips for stays at a Lake Michigan cottage. 4H championships for club soccer. Nights around our fire ring, under a canopy of stars for afternoons at the ballet. Cowboy boots for patent leather. Trips to the feed store for trips to the mall. Trying to avoid wildlife on the road for finding the quickest way around traffic jams. World-class fly fishing for...well, we're still working that one out. But overall, it is good.

Making an unexpected move is an adjustment, no doubt. We miss our friends as we try to build new relationships. Live in a "cozy" rental home until we can sell our historic Colorado Carpenter Gothic. But we have each other. And as a friend, who moved quite a bit as a child, once told me, having to make these adjustments bonded her family in a way not many things could have. And we trust God to know better what we need than we could begin to imagine.

So here we are, celebrating our first Christmas as the Meeks of the Midwest. You can "follow" these Crisis Chronicles (there's a handy button on this page you can click) to hear about our life amidst the corn. And until next time, we wish you a blessed season and a year of enough.

Small Town Transparency

Our house is on the market. Initially because we wanted to purchase a 40-acre ranch for the kids to raise 4H projects on; now just to be flexible in this wretched economy. After a year of listing with an agent - and a year on the market is not unusual here - we decided, with the coming slow season, to just sell ourselves. Now, I've never sold my own home; I really do believe that's what Realtors are for. But a young couple interested in our home couldn't afford it with the Realtor fee. As we were no longer under contract we thought, 'what the heck?'

And here's the thing about doing a For Sale By Owner in a small town. Without a Realtor, you have to exchange all the documents face-to-face. In a city, you'd be able to hire a courier. And it's not that I didn't feel like driving the one-mile distance. It's just that when you have to say no to the offer, it's hard to ring that doorbell and hand that hopeful young couple, pregnant with their first child, the envelope you know will break their hearts. As I drove home, I knew that by the time I opened my front door, they'd know. Heart-wrenching.

In a city you can be so much more anonymous. In a small town, you can't hide as easily. But that can be a real character-builder. Believe me, in the city I would have hired that courier to deliver the bad news. But here in the country, I sucked it up and faced the music. And, though it wasn't easy, I think I grew just a little bit from the experience.

Goin' down the mountain

Today, like so many families on a fall Saturday, we had soccer games. The difference is, we have to drive two hours round trip to play. Every Saturday. And, because we had a 9 a.m. game today, that meant getting up at 6:30 (where WAS that dang sun?) so we could leave by 7:30 to get to Pueblo in time for warm-ups.

In our small town, there is no soccer in school. It would perhaps - God forbid! - cannibalize the football program and, well, this is small town America and we just cannot have that. So beginning in grade school and going through middle school, our kids train during the week here for games played in a league an hour away. We always have to travel because, even though we live in a beautiful valley that is certainly worth a Saturday car trip, we're the only ones up here so down the hill we all go.

It's OK. We're used to having to travel a ways for things. Unless you can get them at the Family Dollar, which we do have. On fall Saturdays we make the downhill run for a little recreation, maybe lunch, some errands, even a movie that we think might not make it up to our one-plex. People often say "how can you drive an hour to get everywhere?". It's easy. There was a time when people used to take weekend drives either for recreation or supplies. So it's really not that different. Today, the Aspens were beginning to turn along with the Maples and Cottonwoods so it was a pleasure. Besides, people in the city spend an hour in their cars going places. They're just not moving, in general. I'd rather have it my way.