Moment of Zen, Five Months, and New Beginnings

I walked out of my hotel room and into the August air. It was less muggy, and the air seemed cooler than it had been in a long time. I just stood there, letting the sun shine down on my face, and I took a deep breath. I was unceremoniously shaken out of my moment of zen by some grumpy old man wanting to get out of the hotel. I hadn’t realized I was standing right in front of the doors. I quickly, but not quickly enough for him, moved to the side, did what Taylor told us all to do, and shook it off. I pointed my face to the sun, took one last deep breath, and walked to my car. Five months is how long I’ve been stepping out of that hotel room. Five months is a really long time, but honestly, I’m not sure I could tell you where the time has gone. I barely remember checking into the hotel. I barely remember moving from Nashville. I barely remember August starting or where it has gone, and I certainly couldn’t tell you how I slept away five months. 

As I started my car and was driving to the office, I tried to remember what my life was like five months ago. I took a few minutes and started to remember my drive to Ooltewah. I put all the songs on my phone on shuffle, put the car in drive, and headed out of Nashville for the very last time. The very first song that came on was Wide Open Spaces, by the Dixie Chicks (which I guess they aren’t called the Dixie Chicks anymore, just The Chicks), and I put that song on repeat for most of the way down to Chattanooga. I had just spent the morning with my own baby chicks, and it seemed appropriate for that song to start playing. My chickens grew up listening to The Chicks because I was a fan, it was the 90’s, and Wide Open Spaces might as well have be our theme song. The three of us, in search of the comfort that those women sang about, and here I was again, heading out on the open road to our place in the clouds. On that two-and-a-half-hour drive south, I thought about this significant change we were making, and I wondered when I would be done with the large, grand changes. I’ve never really been a fan of change. And if you read my blog, you know that because I write about it almost all the time. But this change feels different. This change actually feels good, and it feels permanent. I have every intention of being wheeled out of the new house in a casket at 105 years old with a big smile on my face. A smile from a well-lived life, lots of lessons, good and bad, learned, and even more good food cooked in a kitchen filled with laughter. The most significant part of this change comes with some sadness. It’s the sadness of leaving my babies behind, but I keep telling myself they are only a two-and-a-half-hour drive away from me, not a two-and-a-half-day drive, and thankfully, there is Zoom, FaceTime, and the regular phone, and I try to convince myself it will all be good.

I remember that I was somewhere between Nashville and Chattanooga, driving too fast down the highway with my orchids and tulips in the back seat, when the memory of me looking around my empty apartment of 12 years, thinking it was a good apartment until it wasn’t. I remember closing the door on that apartment and the city I called home for 14 years, saying to myself, “Let’s go make some new memories,” and heading down the road to the wide open spaces. It seems our new adventure and our place in the clouds have been a bit delayed, but the finish line is within reach. It will take a couple of days for us to move out of the hotel room that we have lived in for five months, but if touring has taught me anything, it has taught me how to be adaptable, how to live like a gypsy, how to cook meals with just a microwave and a mini fridge. When we actually move into the house, I am confident I will feel like my home will feel like Buckingham Palace compared to the 400 square feet of the hotel room, and I’m excited to have a stove again, but I’m grateful for this change and the hotel. I’m sure I should invite Gary from the front desk to Thanksgiving dinner because he’s family now. I’ll miss someone saying, “Welcome Home, Ms. DeNicola,” whenever I walk into the lobby.

The delay has also had me remembering my lack of patience and how it has been a constant exercise everyday to remember why we were actually living in this tiny hotel room in a town with a funny name. Soon, the nights sitting on the porch watching the sunset or the mornings sitting on the other porch with my favorite mug filled with coffee, watching the sunrise will become the norm, and these five months will just be a distant memory. As I sit here reminiscing and contemplating these past months, I do not lose sight of how good my little life is and how far I’ve come. I have gone from eating fish sticks and Cheerios a few days a week, with my tiny chickens blissfully unaware of how hard life actually was, to being able to watch the sunrise and sunset from my house in the clouds, and I am grateful for every bump in the road that has lead me to this final destination.