It’s been twelve days since I moved from little
Bellefonte to little Enola (across the river from Harrisburg), and somehow it’s already the
last day of September. Is it just me, or does September always feel like one of
those barely-there months, like you take a second to breathe and then it’s
gone?
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| Move-in day :) (Photo cred to Char-Char) |
This past week-and-a-half was so filled to bursting that I
already feel like I’ve lived here for quite a while. Two days after moving in,
I started my new job as a server at Sophia’s, a café in Camp Hill. Switching to
a new place of employment has been the hardest part of the move so far – to be
completely honest, I swallowed down a few massive throat-lumps and blinked away
tears in the privacy of the dish room last week. I guess if you come to know and
love a place (and people) so much, transitions are always rough… Restaurants
each have their own behind-the-scenes culture, and becoming a part of it
obviously entails far more than learning the menu and where the ketchup is
stored. It takes a long time to truly become ingrained in a place. For a girl
that likes to be surrounded with friends, the whole “do your job well and
you’ll be let in when everyone else decides to let you in” thing can be tough.
But this week was better – funny what a high five, some good-natured teasing,
and “Hey Jo-Jo!” can do to make you feel like you’re being absorbed when you
walk in the door. Friday of this week I’ll begin training as a barista for my
second job at Elementary Coffee Co. in Broad Street Market, which I’m super
pumped about! For the most part, I’ve been commuting to work via bicycle and
that’s an adventure all its own. (Nothing quite like the rush of exhilaration
that comes from relying on my own leg muscles to get me to work on time, or
the wonderful exhaustion that sets in as soon as I see the sign for Nathan’s
and realize I’m five minutes away from crashing on the kitchen floor.) Also, I
still can’t get used to seeing the capital across the river every time I bike
home. I blink every time.
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| THE PLANTS! (Some of them, that is) |
Because I’ve never lived away from home for longer than a
few months, absolutely everything about independent living is exciting for me.
Grocery shopping? Three hurrahs! Cooking for myself? Nothing short of
thrilling. (I made some pretty killer banana bread last week, if I do say so
myself.) Writing my first check for rent? Don’t laugh at my enthusiasm… I know
part of the magic will wear off after a while, but I just want to savor it all
right now. After being lived in for nearly two weeks, my room finally does feel
like mine and not just an aesthetically-pleasing arrangement of all my things.
The futon-bed is perpetually unmade and books and papers are beginning to feather
out across the floor (just behind my chair is a roller derby schedule, my
environmental science textbook, and a strange publication boasting “rock &
roll, weirdo art, and bad ideas – NOT for squares!” that I snatched from the
Midtown Scholar because it was colorful – called, of all things, “Pork”… hmmm).
Right now my windows are open (they’re open 98% of the time) and blustery night
wind is gusting in. My radiator cover is chock-full of plants, most of them
science projects that involve peas being watered with strange concoctions,
although I did just start growing some herbs and whooped with joy the other morning
when they FINALLY sprouted (hooray again!).
I can’t imagine what a move like this would be like if I’d rented an apartment alone. Thank goodness for Bek, my beautiful
housemate who eats dinner whilst sitting on the kitchen floor with me, loves to
laugh as much as I do, and bangs on my bedroom door with excited shouts of,
“Try my vegetable mash!” (She just did that an hour ago – I opened the door and
found a spoonful of cauliflower and turnip in front of my nose.) Eating dinner
on the floor has become one of my favorite parts of the day, mostly because of
Bek’s cats. It never fails: I sit down and they
approach tentatively, sniff at my cup (or drink out of it, if they’re feeling
daring), and rub their little furry heads against my leg until I give them a
taste of whatever I’m eating. Tonight was leftover tomato soup from Sophia’s.
Little Dude tried a tiny bit from my fingertip and happily licked his whiskers for
five minutes.
Although settling in has proved easier than I expected (at least in some ways), the very newness and excitement
of everything means that it will take more than just a couple of weeks
before I can call this place home and mean it. I tried it out the other day and
the word just felt strange. Enola, you’re lovely, but for now home is still a
little white house at the top of South
Allegheny Street. I think it will be that way for
quite a while. Lastly, to those of you who have reached out, whether through Skype, letters, or just showing up at my doorstep -- thank you. Having a life full of genuine and loving people is one of the things I am THE MOST thankful for, no matter where I find myself.Until next time, friends! I'm sure you'll hear from me again soon.
