I CAME HERE TO WALK AND I DID
– My
10 years in Chapel Hill
As I ready myself for the beginning of the
end of my time in Chapel Hill, it is interesting how what I came
here for and what I accomplished were such a satisfactory match
made in “The Southern Part of Heaven”.
1995 - 1996: After commuting 500 miles a
week in Houston, Texas, my husband, son and I moved to Chapel
Hill, NC to affect a change from the cars and concrete to nature
and nurture. After an information gathering trip in 1993
looking at Boone to Nags Head, we decided Chapel Hill was the
place to make this transition. So in 1995, we rented a place to
live – sight unseen - packed a Ryder Truck and headed to North
Carolina. We went from owners of 3 cars in Houston to the
owners of 1 car and three bicycles in Chapel Hill. I went from
earning high 5 figures to very low 5 figures, spending minutes
to spending days at home, life with a stay-at-home husband to a
two-earner household. I went from the HOV lane to the bike lane
for my daily commute. I celebrated my 15th wedding
anniversary and my son’s 12th birthday. We were
looking for change and change was to come! We began our stay
with the hottest summer in recent history in 1995 to January,
1996 with the ice storm that kept the schools closed for two
weeks – not what I had read about in the Chamber of Commerce
information! My son was beginning to think maybe this public
school deal would not be so bad after been in year round private
school in Houston. But that does not mean that the transition
from his school setting of 26 kids in the entire 1-6th
grades (or 6-9 yr old and 9-12 yr old as it is referred to in
Montessori) to 500+ at McDougle Middle School did not make our
heads spins. Sports, “tons of GIRLS”, classrooms with as many
kids in one class as in his entire school made it a transition
for all of us and it was not always graceful. My husband
decided that he needed to be involved with the Chapel Hill’s
recreational sports scene – being hired and fired from McDougle
baseball coaching and that was just the beginning of his legacy
(but that is his story to tell). I don’t think I was even
conscious enough at this point to realize what was happening in
my life. I went from in control to clueless as soon as I left
the Central Time Zone.
My “signature walk”: Home to work:
Brighton Square to Franklin Street. (Note: I did ride my bike
to work at times until a driver of a Sparrow Plumbing did not
see me in his “blind spot” and sent me flying to the curb. I
decided I would save the bike for recreational purposes only)
1996 - 2000: Condo to trailer park was our
next move. I also moved from being married to being divorced.
As we all had time to spend more time together and more time for
quiet contemplation in our new idyllic setting, my husband’s
thoughts and heart led him back to his high school sweetheart.
On the day after our 16th anniversary the
announcement was made and the split was under way. I guess my
absence from the household in Houston did make the heart grow
fonder and my “omnipresence” in the household in Chapel Hill
made my husband’s heart wander. So we were off to the cheapest
digs in the Chapel Hill school district, the trailer park. I
know it was a move I would not have made on my own, but it was
my husband’s parting shot – but I hate to say it, my husband’s
insistence to make this move probably saved our financial lives
as my son and I went through living as close to the poverty line
as I think we would ever have thought humanly possible. At that
time the trailer park owner required an “interview” with
potential residents of his park. That would have been an
interesting conversation with my New England family, who already
thought I had lost touch with the real world by living south of
New Jersey, but to say that even with a Masters Degree, I could
possibly be turned down to live in a trailer park?…!!! Luckily
we passed. This was truly a very interesting setting for a soon
to be divorced 43 yr old woman and a 13 yr old boy to “find
themselves” and establish a new life. We were helped in our
“big picture” thinking as we packed the trunk of my Mazda
Protégé with what we “really” needed as we left the trailer for
“higher ground” during Hurricane Fran. We got comfortable with
the fact that what we had in our trunk may be “it” after Fran’s
visit to the trailer park. Good news, bad news – the trailer
was still there when we returned. We also experienced the 23
inches of snow in one-day event “in the park”. Made even more
interesting since none of our fellow “park-ees” had a shovel.
Growing up in New England, I would not usually attack 23 inches
of snow with a broom, but that is what I did. As I used to tell
my son about the lessons to be learned by playing sports, the
trailer park became another fertile landscape for life lessons.
People’s response to our living in a trailer park and what that
said about “who” we were, hesitancy on my son’s part to invite
friends over, my using it as a crutch to keep the “poor Anne”
conversation alive and well but – as always – we found ourselves
where we needed to be to learn what we needed to learn. On one
of our last days in the park, an older “park-ee’ was found dead
in her trailer after being dead for at least a week. My son had
visions I am sure that she could be me – eccentric, living away
from family and friends, alone – but the trip wasn’t over yet.
My son went to his first prom, my husband moved to Saxapahaw
with his new wife, and I got a new job.
PS: And as so many events in my life have
a comical twist – my divorce became final on the day of Sonny
Bono’s funeral. I have felt a special connection to Cher ever
since. As to the time it took for the divorce - in Texas it
would have taken about 73 hours to get a divorce, in North
Carolina it seemed to take a lifetime. Quiet contemplation and
divine intervention – no matter how long the time period – were
not going to bring my husband and I back together.
My signature walk: Damascus Church Rd from
Jones Ferry to Poythress. (Note: Poythress being the only road
I had ever encountered that had a different name at one than at
the other. The trailer park part of my life was confusing on so
many levels.)
2000-2002: Trailer to Duplex: On one of
my thousands of trips between the trailer and Chapel Hill High
School to pick up my son after practices or games, I saw a brand
new duplex for rent right across from the school. I was now
making more money than before and I thought it would be a great
place for my son to spend his senior year of high school. What
I loved about it was it was brand new. After the 1978 Peachtree
trailer, I was excited to have sheetrock and hardwood again
rather than sheet metal and plastic. My son was still late to
school and continued to pay for and drive to his parking spot
ACROSS THE STREET – “it was too good a spot to give up” per my
lovely son. I was offered big money for my parking spot in
front of my duplex by many pimply-faced teenagers, who did not
win the “parking lottery” at the high school, but turned them
all way. I am amazed my house was not egged or worse. I could
tell you exactly when any sports event was over as the boom
boxes from the departing cars traveled under my window. It was
great. After being out in the middle of nowhere, we were in the
heart of the action. Having grown up on the corner of Center
and Main streets in a small town in Connecticut, I was “back in
the game”. Even if I was not any more connected to real life
than I was in the trailer, at least I looked - and on some level
felt - like I was. My son began his life as a pizza delivery
person – freshly licensed and without a sense of direction! Not
a good combination, but my son has always had aspirations beyond
his qualifications, but – to this day - has reached them
anyway. When he could not reach me on the phone, he would call
his friend’s mother who would talk him through to his next
delivery. He picked a college on the beach even though his last
beach experience included being rescued from the water by
emergency personnel on a trip with a friend’s family to the
Outer Banks. I must admit, my son’s window on the world has
different “glass” in it than most people… My son’s senior year
was not one where all his dreams came true, but he was accepted
to the only college he applied to, he had his first steady
girlfriend, went to his senior prom, and graduated with the
North Carolina Scholar designation – a notation that his
maternal grandfather thought MUST have been a misprint. Many of
family members came to North Carolina for the first time for my
son’s graduation. It was a time of getting the broken family
together. It was my next chance to say “now what”. As to my
window on the world, the shade was still pulled down, but I
loved my son and he was excited about what was ahead – that was
all that mattered. I stayed at the duplex until it became clear
that my son was not coming “home” (like I expected him to know
what that felt like or where that would be…On our trip to Peru
when asked where he was from, my son said Texas).
My signature walk: High School Rd to Estes
Dr and back. But now that I was closer to civilization – I
walked from down Airport to Franklin St, I would walk home after
dropping off my car for service at Chapel Hill Tire in Carrboro,
I would walk down Homestead to the new park to watch my son play
intramural softball after he got kicked off the CHHS baseball
team (but that is his story to tell). I would walk to Wexford
and back. I loved being so close to everything!
2002 to 2005: Duplex to Apartment: Now
that I had had my dose of living close to everything, I wanted
to up the ante. I went from a duplex sharing one wall with my
neighbor to sharing ALL my walls and my floor and ceiling with
my neighbors. I was in 850+ sq ft of completely and totally
overpriced heaven – and it had a pool! I also did not need all
the space I had in the duplex since my son had been home a total
of two nights since he left for college on Labor Day weekend,
2001. I drove back and forth to St Augustine Florida pretty
much once a month for his first year and beyond. Many times I
would drive down on Saturday a.m. and drive back on Sunday.
“Your mother came from WHERE to take you out to dinner”, was a
refrain frequently heard when I made those trips. I filled my
days with minutia at work and mileage at home. Then the
unraveling began – the beginning of the end had begun. But that
was the good news. My husband had done what I could not do for
myself and that was to get me out of a loveless marriage. My
son had – in spite of his loony parents – found a place for
himself and was doing what made his heart sing and graduated
from college in four years. My husband and my son both had ups
and downs, but they were their ups and downs. One event that
all three of us shared during this time was when my son was
heading home from Florida to North Carolina to visit a buddy in
July of 2002 and he fell asleep at the wheel at 8:30 a.m. in
Florence SC and went across three lanes of traffic of I-95
before coming to a stop. So many miracles happened that day and
night, but the fact that at that time of the day he did not hit
any other car and walked away without a scratch - that is
probably the biggest. That was a “marker event” in all our
lives. I can’t speak for my husband, but I know my son and I
had some ripple effects over the next few months. In October of
that year the _ _it hit MY fan of life. It did not go without
notice at work and I was gifted with a “life coach” at no
expense to me and I was front and center for every appointment
that the company’s money could buy. Since I used the visual of
the shade being pulled down earlier in my writing, I will say
that the shade had been yanked up and it looked like one of
those cartoons when it snapped up and keep snapping around for
what seemed to be a million times before coming to rest. My
“shade” was definitely snapping and making lots of noise in the
process. Once the coaching money dried up in 2003, I was then
gifted with a 3-day “Advanced Communication” seminar with a Dr.
Gerald Bell. That was the clincher. I can list a thousand
“revelations” from that year with the coach and 3 days with Dr.
Bell, but the most tangible is that I broke a habit that I had
had since elementary school. I was an incessant doodler! With
all my “flaws” this is not one most people who knew me would put
on the top priority to address, but it was a very tangible sign
that I would do anything rather than “be in the moment”. I know
that sounds very cliché-ish, but it was huge for me. In my
post-doodling period, I have finally truly and totally come to
believe that everything that is happening RIGHT NOW is exactly
what needs to happen to get me to where I need to be. And right
now, I am a 52-year-old woman who wants to help people be the
best they can be – and that work all starts at home. I am
preparing as you read this to find my next “field to plow, green
to aerate, championship to win” (to use locally significant
metaphors). As with Connecticut, Ecuador, Ohio, Kansas, and
Texas, I landed in North Carolina for a reason and I am leaving
in a different “form” then when I arrived. But as I was tempted
to write on my letter of resignation, “I am done now. Thank you
very much for your southern hospitality. My next tour stop is
________________”. I hope to be filling that blank in very
soon.
Signature walk: From Meadowmont to
Franklin St and back – getting a glimpse of the Chancellor or
Coach Williams and other campus celebrities on the way. But now
that I am EVEN closer to civilization, I also walk to visit
friends and co-workers when they are in the hospital, walk to
basketball games (NIT, UVM or other games that I can get a
ticket to), walk to football games (that seem easier to get a
ticket to…), walk to Carrboro to meet a friend for lunch at
Elmo’s, walk to hear lectures on campus, walk from Meadowmont to
Ephesus Church Rd., walk to University Mall.
2005+: TBD, but I hope you will all wish
me well. What I do know is that it will be even closer to the
action and an easy walk to new adventures.
Signature walk?: Down the aisle!!! Keep
your fingers crossed.
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