On things Unfamiliar and Familiar

A decade or so ago, I use to watch Supermarket Sweep on the tele and think to myself, "This game would be fun to play." I am most especially talking about the part where the contestants have to run around the store, looking for particular items, like Crisco, or Cascade dish washing detergent. I use to think I might be kind of good at that. Well, in this last decade or so, reality has hit and one of my very least favorite, most annoying things ever, is grocery shopping in an unfamiliar store. I don't know the layout; everything takes forever to find; I have to go back and forth, one side of the store to the other. It's one aspect of moving that I really dread: finding and familiarizing myself with a new grocery store.

I don't really have a point with this musing, just strong feelings about it, so I wrote it down. You're welcome.

Speaking of things unfamiliar to me, several weekends ago I made my way up to Pittsburgh, with kids in tow. Now it has only been (or already been, depending on how you look at it) nine months since we moved, so Pittsburgh is actually very familiar to me, but it looked a little unfamiliar, being that it was all covered in 3+ feet of snow. I would come to intersections that I knew so well, but I would have a bit of confusion remember which road was what, due partly to the snow making everything look a bit, well, white, and due partly to my nine months absence. And the feeling I got was haunting nostalgia for a place that I love and a place that I may never have the chance to visit again. It's a tough feeling for me. The homes, the intersections, the buildings, the trees, the HILLS. They all brought memories of good times and good people tumbling back to me. Well, except for the hills. I honestly forgot about how any turn you take in Pittsburgh will lead you to a steep hill and that brings a whole flood of bad driving-on-steep-hills memories. Though the hills are lovely.

We had a good visit with our friends and it was very much worth the long drive, the napless days, the late nights to spend some time with friends. Claire and Morgan had such a good time playing with 'Pixburgh' friends , Luke was an angel the entire trip, and I enjoyed my visit (and the food) immensely.

As we were driving out of the 'burgh, I decided to make a little visit on the street where we once lived to see if Claire could still pick out the little brick house we called home for four years. As we drove down the street, she kept saying, "is that one it? is that one it?" But then as we passed our house, she said with confidence and delight, "oh, there it is!" Seeing the street where we lived, the center of our Pittsburgh life, was the hardest part of the trip for me (well, I guess not as hard as the part where I was seriously convinced and panicked that I was going to run out of gas in the toll booth on the freeway). It made me happy to see the little house, exactly as we left it. And then we drove by a little side road to which Claire said, "Hey, that's the way to Keegan's house." Cue tears. My tears. I cried, not Claire. She remembers, I remember our life there. For those memories, I am thankful.

And something I wasn't quite expecting was that as we pulled into our town in Virginia, it looked familiar, it had the feeling of coming home, which was such a stark difference from the feeling of foreignness it held nine months ago as we pulled in to our new town. This time, it's familiarity was as comfortable as putting on a favorite baggy hoody.

Of course, now that I have found that comfort, we will be moving again in three months and we'll start this whole familiar, unfamiliar story again. And I will have to find a new grocery store.

Shoot.