Shades of Blue

I have crossed over to the dark side.  Dark blue, that is.  I am a card carrying member of the Blue Devil Duke community.  I can now converse with authority about things such as K-ville and the rules of tenting.  I understand that the term Cameron Crazies is an endearment.   I refer to things happening “on West” and have ridden the Bull City Connector.   Mad Hatters makes me think of coffee instead of Cheshire cats and misplaced girls.

As a Chapel Hill resident, I live in Tar Heel country.   The clear blue of Carolina colors everything from La Residence’s Tar Heeltini to dorm room doors to the local fire engines.   On game days, cars fly team flags as they line up to park for the buses to the stadium which are draped in, of course, Carolina blue.    After nearly two years here, I have my particular preferences.  I love Foster’s smoothies and Elmo’s greek grilled cheese.  Weaver Street Market has the best chocolate croissants and Chocolatier Stam makes the best soy milk hot cocoa.  

My husband works with UNC, so we had been full family tar heels until my defection.  Luckily, there is precedent for this split in our marriage.  We were a mixed baseball marriage.  As a jersey boy, my husband is a NY Yankees supporter while I am a member of Red Sox Nation.   We might have graciously (or not) acknowledged the skill of the spouse’s team but neither one of us was switching sides. 

The lines of the battle of the blues are not quite so clearly drawn.  Without prior personal stakes in these teams, we are at something of a loss.   Duke is a private school.  UNC Chapel Hill is public. Duke is in Durham, twenty minutes away.  Carolina is quite literally in our backyard.  While both schools field good football teams, it is all about basketball here.   Carolina has the football scandal.  Duke still flinches each time you mention lacrosse.   It’s tough to work it out.

 We’ve decided that we won’t even try.   We’re feeling pretty lucky to live in a place we love, doing work that seems useful.   If that means that there are neighbors who can only speak to one of us at a time accordingly to school allegiances... well, we do still talk to each other.

You've got mail...boxes

There were many things I expected to miss when we moved south.  I expected to miss the feeling of autumn in New England, where crisp juicy apples hang on trees just begging me to pick them and put them into pies.   I expected to miss the annual football vs. hockey discussions between parents who have children trying to survive triple session summer practice and those who have to wake themselves just after midnight to get all the gear, children, snacks, blankets and outerwear to the rink for the tournament that begins at six am on the other side of the state.   Having no players in either sport, I could always watch from the sidelines as the "you think you've got it bad" lists escalated.  

I didn't see the mail thing coming.   When I was growing up, we had a mailbox attached to the front of our house.  George the mailman would stuff the box full of letters, bills, flyers and magazines.   Things too big to fit into the box but too small to be left at the post office were left by the door.   This was in the kind of small town where you ran into George the mailman later in the day and he bought you, your brother and the neighbor's cousin ice cream when the truck went by.  

When I was older, mail was delivered to various boxes or slots located in the buildings and houses where I lived.  I checked those boxes once to several times a day in direct proportion to how far I was from home and how lonely I was at the moment.    In one memorable location, the mail slot was positioned in the door at the perfect height to allow for mailman to canine hand off.  My dog seemed to believe we had orchestrated this just for her and was ecstatic at the daily influx of chewable material.   It was years before I got some of those bills straightened out.  In my first overseas posting, mail became my link to home and family.  Letters would arrive by bush taxi, wrapped in thick stacks that contained many weeks worth of correspondence.  

When we moved to Chapel Hill, I assumed that since we were living in essentially the same kind of house we had in Massachusetts, we would have the same wave and smile relationship with the mail carrier.  I thought I would wander out each day into my new climate to pick up flyers for interesting activities and offers from local merchants.  Instead, our mailbox is located in a mailbox bank around the corner from the house.   In order to get the mail, we leave the house and walk about five hundred yards past the end of the circle to the mailbox bank.  We have to have a special mailbox key.  It's an odd hybrid of the post office box and the house mounted mail delivery system.   I didn't like it from the beginning but thought it might allow for bonding with the neighbors.  

I pictured myself having pleasant chats about weather and neighborhood activities over Crate and Barrel catalogs.  Discussions of school mailings would undoubtedly lead to coffee on the deck while the dogs romped in the yard.   People who are already familiar with the system will be unsurprised to learn that this hasn't happened.  In fact, the mailbox bank is almost the opposite of a social opportunity.  We drive up to the box as we arrive home after work or head out on errands.   On rainy days, we leave the mail to wait in the box until things dry out.   Even mail mix ups don't lead to new friendships.  Each postal carrier has so many boxes on the route that we get mail for people three subdivisions away.  We repost it into the outgoing mailbox and think about how interesting it would be to meet the people who get a catalog from the British bookseller, or the Indian tea merchant. 

Instead, I wave from the car as we queue up and hop out to unlock the little box and squirrel away its treasures.  Sometimes, if we are very lucky, our box will contain another key.  This key will unlock the larger "package" box at the bottom of the mailbox bank.   It's not the same as ice cream from George the mailman but it beats having the dog eat the Christmas cards.

I'm Melting!

It is yet another day in what I have decided to call the Carolina inferno. The temperature hovers around 100 degrees but feels like double that. Ten minutes outside and I've dropped two pounds in water weight and brain matter. The heat saps my energy, my enthusiasm, my ability to hold a train of thought. I've become a rabid fan of air conditioning. A repair truck in front of a neighbor's house makes me want to bring casseroles and ice cream to help them through the tragedy until their unit is functioning again.

This should not take me by surprise. I moved to the South. What was I expecting? This is the trade-off, right? When my former neighbors are struggling with grey skies and icy roads, I'll be counting camellias. When they measure their time outside in frozen body parts, I'll be taking the dog for a long evening walk. It is worth it..right?

June was unseasonably warm, my new neighbors all nod. Record-setting says the local paper. I should feel comforted. I just feel hot. "It's never this bad," says the local news talking head.

Looking for a silver lining, I went out and bought tropical plants. Lush canna lilys, banana leaves with wide leaves. I planted them in the bright sunlight, squinting happily at the riot of color. Two days later, the plants are wilting. These are tropical plants, bred to survive African hot seasons and Carolina is killing them. I hook up hoses, soakers, sprinklers in an effort to funnel water to the limp stems. The water droplets sizzle and burn, leaving marks on those wide banana leaves.

Between the AC and the watering, I've become my own global resource black hole. Global warming is more than an intellectual concept. Its my new front lawn.

I have realized that I cannot beat this heat. I can only relax and repeat my new mantra.. Winter is coming. Winter is coming. Winter is coming.

Healthy Junk Food - A farm tour journal

Food is one the most important defining characteristics of a region. Any person can name a food that is tied to a particular location. Having lived all over the world, I tend to associate food with markets and restaurants. Here in Chapel Hill, this has meant an endless exploring of farmer's markets and local food vendors. I have found local purveyors of just about any food I could imagine from homemade sausage to hand poured chocolates to vegan casseroles and raw food crackers. There is always something new to find just around the corner. This meant that, of course, I had to go on the Farm Tour.

The idea behind a farm tour is that you travel to a farm or farms to see the environment, meet the farmers and get a better understanding of where your food comes from. The orange county farm tour was no different. There were probably forty farms involved in the tour, divided into three areas of exploration. Each farm submitted a brief description of their farm and agreed to have us drive over and wander all over their land. If there was an item of particular interest, it was highlighted in the description. One farm, for example, had the UNC mascot, a blue-horned ram, living with them. There were two farms who listed themselves as Eco-institutes, capable of teaching us to grow our own food or process wool from local sheep. I wasn't really expecting the need to spin my own wool anytime soon but there was another reason to buckle up and head off - healthy junk food.

Stop number one on the farm tour - Home of the UNC Ram. This was a picture perfect cattle farm fifteen minutes from my house. A one hundred year old barn rose behind the front-porched farmhouse. A couple of tractors were parked inside the electric fence behind which roamed two beautiful cattle-like creatures. We met the family that farmed the more than one hundred acres that wrapped around us. They were patient, kind, very friendly and made farm life look like something manageable. I knew I'd have that steer dead in a week but they made me believe that I had a chance. Still, the highlight of the farm was in carb form. Fresh bread made from wheat grown in a couple of side fields of the farm was the junk food here. A local baker is working with area farmers to grow ancient grains as well as wheat. Each loaf of bread had local wheat, teff, spelt or some other grain. It also might have chocolate or spicy black olives. I bought a loaf of every flavor and hid in the car to eat the last chocolate croissant before my son got back.

Farm number two was a creamery. I was actually really excited about this farm. I've been buying cheese from this woman-owned and predominantly woman run farm since we moved south. They have a variety of cheeses that are uniformly yummy. These folks were anxious to have visitors, but very careful. We had to park about 1/4 mile away from the actual farm and wear protective booties on our feet. Hundreds of people shuffled down that stretch of road looking like escapees from a local hospital. But it was so worth it. There were wonderful demonstrations of milking and cheese-making. One of the women had created a video to watch. There were even adorable piglets to distract the smaller children. I didn't care. I went for the cheese. Two new kinds of mozzarella and a tangy farmer's wheel were my first scores of the visit. Then, a heavenly scent filled the air - hot oil. Freshly dipped and fried balls of the newest mozzarella washed down with thick strawberry banana yogurt smoothies. I could have died happy right there.

Farm number three should have been a local dairy. Renowned in the area, they make and sell ice cream at two separate locations. The farm is, I'm told, quite beautiful. Nestled into a small set of hills, it has the requisite farm house and barn as well as milking and ice-cream making buildings. I'm told these things but I can't swear to them because I never made it past the ice cream stand. Sitting on the porch, looking out over the valley while sipping on a root beer float, I reflected on the fact that I had eaten an obscene amount of food over the course of the afternoon. BUT, every bit had been locally grown and prepared from the freshest of ingredients possible. I had been extremely kind to my body while I was stuffing it mercilessly. I decided that I really did like farm tours after all.

The garden tour

I woke up today and realized that this was one of "those" days. This was one of the days that I promised myself when I was packing boxes, packing children and packing pets. I told myself that there would be days when I would be so glad to have put our entire life into boxes and cars and headed south.

Today, you see, is garden tour day. It is a lovely day and I get to spend it wandering around chapel hill looking at beautiful gardens that someone else has to tend. If you are not a garden person, the appeal can seem weak. But if, like me, you are someone who looks at gardens the way chocoholics look at the Godiva window, it doesn't get much better than this.

There are eight private homes that have opened their gates to teeming hordes of flower-crazed fans. As with other community wide activities, tickets have been sold and maps have been printed. Signs sprouted on curbs overnight with arrows and bouquets directing those in search of outer beauty to the promised land.

Knowing my own limitations, I have only planned to see four of the eight gardens. After consulting neighbors, I plan to focus my efforts on one corner of the show neighborhood. I arrive in the show area at around 11:30. It is like parking for a concert. I knew gardening was more important in this area but this is like a sale at Filene's Basement. There are people in straw hats and yellow vests directing us to open spots along the sides of the road. Everyone, as is nearly always the case down here, is pleasant and patient while we jockey for road position. At one point, my parking guru laughingly waves me into a u-turn and parking space as he explains that there is no space left on the length of the road to the first house I want to tour.

The tour is concentrated in a particular neighborhood of Chapel Hill, which allows for multiple garden viewing without moving your vehicle too often. With most of the neighborhood roads parked off and people dressed in their garden viewing best (note to self - next year wear a straw hat), it feels like we are headed to an enormous afternoon tea party.

The first garden is breathtaking. The second garden is splendid. The third garden is perhaps the most interesting use of a vertical lot I've ever seen. The fourth garden looks like something that Hollywood visits when it is looking for garden settings. The goal of the tour is to raise money for the garden club and their various community activities. The goal of the gardeners who go on the tour is to steal good ideas. At the end of two hours, my head is exploding. It would never have occurred to me to tuck a fern garden underneath a two story deck on a sloped lot. I had no idea that simply shifting the material used for a walkway would define a different area of the garden so effectively. One of the gardens has triangular cut-outs of one patio carefully planted with tiny tiny succulents. Another garden uses slant cut wooden boards to create a deer fence that looks like an architectural element while not blocking any of the view. I find myself mentally redesigning the deck on the back of our house so we could incorporate more planters.

Tired and sated, I collapse onto the couch at home. My feet ache, my hands are cramped from note-taking. I let my eyes wander towards our backyard, recently denuded of four trees to open up more space. I could probably put a small pond near the woods, couldn't I? How hard could it be?

A Year Ago...

April 14, 2010

A year ago, we were in mourning. We had entered that stage of relocation know to my children as "the last time we'll ever…" It was the last Boston Marathon we would watch from the street in front of the Catholic Church in the center of town. It was the last April vacation we'd spend with friends in our house in Pennsylvania. It was the last time they would watch me wander around the yard yelling for them to Come And See whatever tiny little perennial was starting to climb out of the newly unfrozen ground. It was brutal.

The children and I had been living in limbo for nearly nine months at this point. We knew we were leaving. We knew, most likely, when we were leaving. Still, the actual process of saying goodbye and driving away had only recently become REAL. The house was on the market, freshly updated and staged to look appealing to the five people in the world who might be in the market for a house in the suburbs of Boston during the real estate crash. We had become expert at what was referred to as "fifteen minute fade". Quick – there was a potential buyer. You grab the dog. I'll vacuum and we'll hope they don't open the dishwasher. We haunted the library, the park, sometimes the local restaurant. "We can't go home. Some stranger is walking around it." It was as though home was long gone but we still had to live there.

If it was challenging for me, it was a thousand-fold worse for the children. High school and middle school age, they were moving away from the only home they remembered. After years of navigating the nasty social waves of the pre-teen hood, both were finally feeling a sense of mastery in this very familiar environment. What kind of parents were we? This wasn't a military move, not a move brought on by job loss. The children understood those moves. We were moving because it "made sense" and would be a "better quality of life". If my daughter typed those lines, the quotes would be blood-dripping daggers. This was so not on their agenda. My daughter wanted to go to prom with her friends from kindergarten. My son was enjoying the freedom of biking around our small town without needing a chaperone. They could see the immediate future and their quality of life looked pretty darn good.

So if you heard what sounded like a sonic boom sometime around September 5^th 2008, that was us telling them we were moving. It would be months before my daughter referred to Chapel Hill as anything other than "the place where dreams go to die". My son, at first enthused at thought of a new place to explore, grew gradually less happy with the concept as time went on. My husband, trying to acclimate to a new job long distance, had the unenviable task of holding me together as I rode each wave of emotion the children threw in our direction. I went out and bought a silver cuff bracelet on which is inscribed, "This too will pass". I wore it like a talisman, a charm as a promise to myself that it would not always be like this.

And, like all bits of superstition, it had some truth. It wasn't always like that. The children helped us pick out the house we eventually bought in Chapel Hill. They claimed their rooms like gold diggers on a new strike. Our former home sold relatively quickly. The school system in our former hometown released the children from school a month early, sparing us the additional trauma of living in temporary housing or commuting from another town for that last month of school. The early release meant that my daughter didn't have to take final exams, letting her fully enjoy her last few days with her friends. My son's neighborhood friends threw him a party, promising to visit him as soon as they could.

This year, as the marathon thunders past the graveyard of St. Cecelia's, we'll be here in the southlands, trying to figure out what exactly one does with all those prickly little misnamed "sweet gum balls" that the tree in the backyard keeps spitting at us. There is no April vacation in Chapel Hill. Spring break was a week ago. The children and I went back north for the week. It was wonderful and difficult. We were very glad to come home and find that the sky was already turning that indescribable color known locally as Carolina Blue.