Easter

Today is Easter Sunday. Family-oriented holidays are strange for me, given that my "family" is made up of a husband, and then a random assortment of close friends scattered around the Midwest. There is no usual, no tradition, and each year is different. As an atheist, I don't care. Holidays generally are more gloom for me than celebration. They remind me of happier holidays, or holidays where people who are now dead gathered. And while there is much liberation in getting to choose each year and each holiday how I will spend it and with whom, there is also a feeling of instability.

There is a popular psychologist who says that too much choice and freedom is bad for us. At the start of his teaching career, he said his students didn't worry about much--they knew they would likely marry their high school sweetheart, settle in the same hometown in which they were raised, and their kids would attend the same schools. Now, everything is up for grabs. There is something delightful about that, but also something so unsettling. Nothing is assumed, nothing is for sure, nothing is forever. Limiting, and freeing. Constricting, and inspiring.

I took a quiz online that was supposed to compile my interests and concerns and tell me the best places in the US for me to live. 4 out of the top 5 were in Oregon, which makes sense, I suppose. When I imagined a new life there, I thought about my friends-like-sisters in Indiana. Would I want to be so far? Could I manage only seeing them once or twice a year? Don't I want my kids to know them? Everyone I care enough about to factor into this decision lives in Chicago or Indianapolis. Would the quality of life outweigh all of that?

I suppose I feel that since I am sort of unmoored, and only moored to some people by choice and not chance, that I can do whatever I please. That I would be perfectly happy with P and any children we have, creating my own little tribe anywhere. My little family, my dog, my coffee, my books. Some place cheaper, so not all of our income went to mortgage and property taxes. Some place with a decent school system. Some place safe.

After 8 years, I feel the weight of this city life, and no wonder, as the cost of living, as well as the violence, has risen dramatically here in my tenure. It's all a lot. It feels noisy. It feels limited. Perhaps all I need is a vacation. Perhaps all I need is a beer. But after 8 years and no family to stick with, and "family" who is also spreading out and understanding of this need to see and experience and explore, I'm curious. And I'm restless. And I miss the Easter basket cupcakes my mom used to make every year, with the dyed coconut flakes as grass, three jelly beans for eggs, and a bent pipe cleaner for the handle. And I suppose if I can't have those no matter where I live, I also suppose it doesn't matter where I live. No matter my zip code, I'll constantly, as always, be making it up as I go.

One of my favorite memories is of my mother and I on a park bench in Paris, France. It was the last city of our three week tour through Europe and after breakfast of croissants and coffee, we sat on a park bench to decide how to spend our day. I ended up asleep, my head in her lap, the cool early summer breeze funneling through L'arc de Triomphe and over us, ruffling my mother's frosted feathered hair.