The Ordinary Extraordinary blog
The Ordinary Extraordinary blog
18 Months, 6600 Miles
Those of you who know us know it’s been an active eighteen months for us. But for those of you who don’t, and who may have wondered at the drop off in regular entries here at The Ordinary Extraordinary, here’s a bit of catching up. We left Orange County (in Southern California) for New England back in April 2016, off to take a stab at a different way of life and to see how things in the East—the rural East—would suit us. (We’ve lived in Southern California most of our adult lives, with years also spent in downtown Chicago.) We’d researched places we thought we’d find most to our liking and settled on western Massachusetts. Anna secured a job in Vermont, just over the nearby border, and after an enjoyably meandering cross-country drive (movers had taken our things), we settled in. And bit by bit, exploring throughout all of New England, we found ... well, it just wasn’t to our liking.
You might wonder if our dislike was due to one of the likely culprits. No. For one, winter was no problem. (Instead, it was summertime relative humidity that was far less pleasant, with levels far above those we’d experienced in past years in the Midwest and the South.) Was it rural life? No—we were prepared for fewer options, quieter days, and longer distances. (The town we lived in, in far southern Vermont, was not rural and was by far our least favorite place.) Not weather, not setting—so what, then?
Throughout the area we moved to, people are very liberal. This was a giant plus for us, and we thought it’d be a welcome immersion after the more blended places we’d lived previously. Yes, Los Angeles and Chicago are very Democratic—but we were hoping for a deeper shade of blue. We expected—after a fair amount of research, mind you—to find an area rich in graduates of the liberal universities all around (U.Mass, Amherst, Smith, etc.) as well as being tradition-minded, with a respect for the colonial spirit and all that. So what did we find? Aside from a few well-preserved historical places, that tradition-mindedness was entirely absent. But surely the tweed-jacketed masses were discussing Dickinson and realpolitik? Nope. Instead of finding minds of graduate and doctorate quality, we found the majority to be more that of misguided, firebrand freshmen—freshmen who were convinced of their rightness, mostly about things like the power of yoga and a generalized “spiritual practice.” Like the cosseted liberals of Santa Monica and Palo Alto? No, like particularly cotton-candy-brained children of said liberals. We’d found far more intellectual rigor and agility of mind in California and Chicago. And while the politics of rural New England were throughly left-leaning, much of the view of sexuality was tightly buttoned-up.
Was it all so terrible? No. There are some lovely places in rural New England, of course—but not so much more than you’ll find out west (unless your yardstick is percentage of farmland). And there were some decent people, of course—but most of them were contained around those aforementioned universities and very little elsewhere. Vermont did next to nothing for us overall. New Hampshire had a few choice spots but didn’t compel us enough. Western Massachusetts was the pick of our immediate area ... but again, just not enough. We also re-confirmed our long love of the coast of Maine but the dearth of job opportunities keep that option distant.
The job Anna had taken also turned out to be less fulfilling than was expected, and our thoughts began to turn toward what is it we want from the place we live? With so many more factors than we can illuminate well enough here, we realized how much more California satisfies the elements of life that are important to us. We had never disliked southern California—our reason for moving was feeling over-familiar with it, and a wish to try something new. So what then? California, yes—but something new.
Where is similar to Southern California but not Southern California, with scads of marketing jobs for Anna, and filled with well-minded liberals of all kinds? Well that’d be Silicon Valley, immediately south of San Francisco. And so we set the gears in motion and chose another moving company. And before spending another Christmas in a place we didn’t like, we enjoyed another cross-country drive (the northern route this time) and settled into a fantastic new home in Silicon Valley.
And we missed Asian culture. And good Mexican food. And we’re back, in a place we thoroughly enjoy, in the state we love, and all is again right with the world—as long as you don’t look at the news. Alan has completed the novel he began in California in 2015 and Anna is weighing job offers from tech and construction companies. All is happy here at home.
Saturday, November 18, 2017