New Hampshire

"'I have something to do, before the end and it lies ahead not in the Shire'" -Frodo, Lord of the Rings (hey, it's my blog. I can quote whoever I want).

On Friday we took the train 8 hours north from Baltimore's Penn Station to Brattleboro, VT and met my parents for dinner. 15 minutes east, They live in the same house I grew up in across the Connecticut river in tiny, perfect, picturesque Westmoreland, NH. We swam in our favorite spots, hiked up mountains, weeded veggie gardens, lay in the grass, and watched the end of the olympics while stuffing our faces full of fresh blueberry grunt and drinking Long Trail ale. I can't seem to recall what made us come back to Baltimore, but I think it has something to do with our cat? (or perhaps this homegrown Baltimore business? Or maybe Phil's great teaching job?) Wherever you go, there you are, we always say. (what we don't say is that sometimes when you come back, you're still there, a little bit longer in your head).

As we work on refinancing our mortgage this week, I am being forced to face the next few years, and consider that new closing costs are only worth paying if we will be staying for 3-5 more years. We've just completed our 8th year in Baltimore, which is 6 more years than we claimed we'd stay on arrival. We love our friends, we love our neighbors and we love so much about living in a city (specifically one whose art scene is a living, growing thing in which anything is possible and the resources are eagerly available). There are so many people and places 8 hours north that keep tugging at my heartstrings, making these papers so very hard to sign... but so many things in this city that we don't feel done with yet.

The nice thing here, I suppose is that modern technology has made it possible to both stay in touch with family, and visit them easily - albeit with 8 hours of travel, and a $$ fee - while still having our home base in a city, which provides an audience, and a supply of facilities we just wouldn't have in New Hampshire... we can travel easily to anywhere we want by train, plane or automobile and often in time for dinner. So I sit here thinking these things and trying to look a pile of papers the size of Mt Monadnock in the eye, and I have no answer but that we seem to be here, instead of there, and a cheaper mortgage would allow more trips between the two.