Making Moves

The moves I refer to amount to one, large scale career-altering, zip code-tweaking exodus.

I accepted a copy editing position at The Bismarck Tribune. It’s the Lee Enterprise paper covering North Dakota’s capital and the surrounding areas. The fruits of the 2015 New Year’s resolution ripening!

A cross country road trip spanning a week, stopping in Chicago to see Good Chinese Wife author Susan-Blumberg Kason, and starting work on Jan. 25 means we have a growing list of before-we-move to-dos.

The Tribune newsroom has helped, offering names of realtors and preparing to answer the onslaught of questions that will soon arise.

We leave behind 50 to 60 degree weather. North Dakota winters will not be much different from what confronted us in Xi’an. Heck, winters in ZJ’s hometown are most brutal, sans indoor heating.

I’ve been asked, “Why Bismarck?”

Why not? The great outdoors at our fingertips, pristine national parks, the Missouri River running through town, a clean slate, a place to call our own, new writing inspiration and a slower pace of living, the last of which is an assumption, of course.

Adventure also awaits us on the 1600 plus mile car trip in our compact Focus-that-could, where we will store the four suitcases, and then some, of belongings accumulated in four years in Xi’an and a year and a half here in New Jersey.

The meticulous list-making is well underway, and tomorrow I’ll connect with realtors, now that some of the holidays are out of the way.

Stressed — the obvious choice of feeling for such a daunting move — is not really on my radar. I’m relieved and elated, twinged slightly by nerves we all get when it comes to relocating.

Although there’s still details to be worked out, hence the nerves, I’m more than ecstatic to start a new chapter: work, location, and home* wise.

There will be more to say as packing, apartment hunting, and the remaining details unfold.

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*I buy into natural philospher Pliny the Elder’s “home is where the heart is” proverb.

Originally published at xiananigans.com on December 27, 2015.