Pre-Turkey 6/9/14

Having never officially blogged before, the practice already has me feeling a bit self-conscious, but I assume that will fade. Today Jena and I discussed our respective nervousness about our upcoming move. In fact, moments before I took this leap into cyber-thought-conveyance, Jena was looking up pictures of Talas, where we'll be headed in ... let me check the calendar ... twenty-one days. She has expressed more anxiety about the move than I have at this point, which I find pretty surprising since I usually freak out about this sort of thing. I think my saving grace has been that I've been keeping myself pretty busy. I have item writing to do for that testing company I work for, and tomorrow I've got an initial meeting with a tutee. These things are keeping me from going too far into the abstract land of snowballing thoughts. I'm reminded of that scene in Grapes of Wrath (I can't find the exact quote at the moment) where one of Ma Joad's sons asks her if she's excited about what their life is going to be like in California, and she responds by saying that their are a thousand lives that you might lead; when it comes down to it, you just have the one you're living. So right now, I'm not particularly nervous about the move. I'm excited that I've acheived what my friend Hunter called escape velocity, when referring to leaving one's town. Today Jena extended the metaphor by saying that as part of a married couple, I have more mass, and maybe that's why I'm able to finally make this break from the gravity of Flagstaff. I like Flagstaff alright but am ready to leave it to the college kids, the academicians, the hospital workers, the Gore employees, and the tourists who have helped to jack up the prices until it's tough to get by. I've been here for six years, and I don't have a particularly good reason why except that living in the same town as my parents helped me get established on a professional path following my college days. Heading to Turkey, then, will allow me to grow in a new direction beyond the confines of this town, and I think that Jena and I will be able to make a good life there. Jena and I, as she remarked on a walk today, are good teachers, and that is enough to allay some of my professional anxieties that I do have. All the rest--the getting settled, the learning a new language and culture--will come as it will.