No Summer

Once and a while, but thankfully less frequently than a year ago, I become desperate to get off this train.  Sometimes, particularly on Friday nights, all I can think about is Minnesota.  Lakes and good shopping, friends on patios, delightful fresh food at reasonable prices, fresh summer smells and green everywhere.

This is our second "summer" in Calgary, so one thing I've noticed is that these feelings of crazy jump-ship persuasion are stronger in the summer.  There is no real summer here, merely a nice green extended spring, which moves into a really nice fall.  And those things are good, but they are not summer.  It could be that I have it on a pedestal, because it's so out of reach, but in my mind summer in Minnesota is magical.

My yearnings cause domestic trouble.  They are hard on my husband, and they lead to questions.  We wonder (at least once every couple of months since we moved to CA) about living separately...we wonder where we could go next that would be less painful (proximity to major airports?  distance from home?  different work schedule? travel allowance available?)...all factors of transfers in his company, and all factors we believe contribute to our ability to visit (or to prevent visits) home.  We weigh pros and cons of buying some property in Minnesota, to feel more connected.

A while back, a friend suggested to me that we could quit his job and just come home.  Be baristas or something.  However, that same friend had limited her own job search to the geographic boundaries of her future husband's career, for the same reasons that we have not given up on my husband's tricky path: over a decade worth of skills, a professional network, solid compensation and work that he likes.

It feels like we need a different model.  I am someone known to take the most circuitous, most ridiculous path possible.  Witness my winding path into apparel production.  This is complicated, and we are trying to be responsible, yet imaginative and open-minded grown-ups.  Maybe I need to look at this like that...a life puzzle that just needs to ferment a little longer.

In the meantime, we are dreaming of a little land and tiny cabin in Minnesota, and I am plotting to get to the lake in August, no matter what.