Yet another transition time, and even though I’ve done it now dozens of times, it never stops feeling weird. I usually take my sweet time packing up, and leave all my room decorations up to the very end to keep my home intact for as long as I can before I become transient once more. I lingered in Texas for three whole weeks after I stopped working— it was quite good to have an extended time of relaxing and saying my goodbyes and focusing on the community at base for one last hurrah of trail mail and community dinners.
The different thing this time is that I left a place that I’ve been working at for two years (seasonally, but still it counts), and am going to a place that I’ve known for most of my life. And for context in case you think two years is short… that’s the longest I’ve been in a place since my sophomore year of college in 2011. So wow, yeah, the place I’ve spent the most time at in ten years!! Had to type that out to fully realize that! But now I've been gone for 2+ weeks, and I feel Very far away from my desert home. I'm whirling around DC, bouncing from cherry blossom viewings to walks with friends to many reference calls to tackling e-mails to finally meeting up with my team of fellow camp director people in person, not on zoom. I'm trying to take in only a few items from my car, because in a couple days I'll be in WV, moving into a cabin for the Spring, and settling into my busy busy life of prepping the facilities, planting the garden, and ya know, planning for a full spring and summer of school groups and camp.
So I'll head to a place that is most familiar to me, doing a job that is semi-familiar to me, working to build community again, and processing what is sure to be a lot of varied emotions. I cried last week on the road as feelings caught up to me. The closer I got to The Cove on my road trip, the more started to feel these waves of emotion that hit every couple of days. Sometimes they’re anxious heart flutters, full of worry about this big new job and all the pressures that come with it. Sometimes I'm just hit by the unfairness and sadness of Vini’s death. And sometimes I think I should feel emotions and feel nothing at all. I’ve been picturing driving by the garden and then by the crop circle and croquet lawn and then to the dorms, feeling the excitement of entering the Cove, and then backing up down the driveway to unload, and looking expectedly towards the lodge, smelling that familiar lodge smell, and… not seeing Vini. I am dreading that. It could be a rough transition from the stat of denial I’ve been in these last few months, to having to face the reality that no, Vini isn’t just working in her garden until dark, she’s just not there.
And at the same time, she will be there. Every single thing will have her handwriting on it, every google doc has her snarky notes, the garden will certainly have her presence, as will the swim dock and the croquet lawn at golden hour. I’ll hang up my own decorations on the wall of the Phoebe’s Nest, my collection of memorabilia from loved ones that I won’t take down until the moment before I leave the Cove in late Fall. I’ll hear Vini’s voice muttering about how she *still* hasn’t had time to put up her decorations and it’s already May goddammit. I’m hoping after the initial shock of reality hits me, I’ll be hit more often by pleasant recollections, a faint buzzing among my breakfast dishes.
