Day Thirty-Six: Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Food and bathrooms; bathrooms and food. See that? And here I thought I wasn't writing enough about my pregnancy.

Okay, so things were winding down and Mike was as anxious as ever to arrive at our western Massachusetts destination. He tried several times to talk me out of Amish Country, but I wasn't having it. I wanted to check out the life of the horse and buggy. I also thought it might be a really cool thing for Isaac, aka Rocket Boy, to encounter a culture that was choosing to forgo the modern technology he so dearly loved. (Isaac regularly asks me to look up videos on the computer about new technological breakthroughs, he can tell you anything you'd like to know about rocket lift off, and he starts about every third sentence with “When I grow up I'm gonna invent...”)

After grabbing a map and some advice at the downtown Lancaster welcome center, we meandered through the farms, guided by small, hand-painted signs advertising eggs, goat milk, quilts, bird houses, root beer, mailboxes, and my very, very favorite: “Custom Pea and Lima Bean Shelling.”

We made stops here and there, bought some lemonade, some pretzels. Isaac was not at all thrilled with the stop and start afternoon, he wanted to get to our campsite and be done. His motivations didn't quite mimic his dad's “the destination, not the journey” attitude, as I happen to know what he really wanted was to be released from the van to study anthills and beg us to roast marshmallows. However, he was in fact fascinated by the idea of Amish culture and excitedly pointed out horse-drawn plows in the fields.

I made Mike U-turn for the driveway marked with the sweet potato plant sign. There were only a couple days left of our trip and I figured they'd probably survive. Besides, the succulents we'd brought from California needed some company.

We pulled in and we waited. A couple of mellow bulldogs showed up to slobber on us. Children spied us from the safety of the screened porch, then went running, announcing the arrival of the strange white van. Only the smallest was left. As a sweet-faced boy, about three, stepped out into view in his wide-brimmed hat and suspenders, my hand went into virtual spasms trying not to lift the camera. (Photography is frowned upon by the Amish.)

Eventually, a woman appeared and asked how many plants I'd like. I, in turn, asked how much they cost. Twelve cents each. Excuse me? Twelve cents. ----. I. Uh. I....

Mike had to rescue me. I was speechless. We left with three dollars worth – enough for a whole garden of sweet potatoes should we actually find a house where we can plant them. That's what this was, this stop. An act of optimism. I'd battled pit toilets, pig farmers, and Interstate 80. I'd survived gargantuan RVs, fried cheeseballs, and Nebraska. It was almost over, and somewhere deep inside, maybe I still believed that at the end of it all we'd find a home. That we'd make a place where the food was all-natural, the gardens were priority, and the fucking cars just weren't. Okay, two out of three, then. No Amish in Massachusetts that I know of.

Driving from west to east has more than a little in common with labor. Things tend to move slowly at first – big, square western states that never end. And painful. Then, just when you think it'll last forever, things begin to hurry along – roads get busier, states flying by, the next and then the next.

When I was in labor with Isaac, it actually progressed very fast. When it came time to push, I didn't, really. My midwife told me afterwards that she thought I wasn't yet mentally prepared to see the end of this process. (Hell, yeah! I still thought I might be having a litter of kittens!) So my brain and body were essentially stalling to give themselves time to take it all in.

I am not ready for this trip to be done. Everyone keeps suggesting I must be. My husband was eight states ago. But I am not. I can wait. Maybe I'm just afraid of the next step. Or maybe I just need time to catch up.

Whenever I go hiking with Mike, I am always waiting, journal and trailmix in backpack, for the next place to stop. He wants to go further, go longer, go. Sometimes one manages to convince the other of the benefits of his or her preferred method. This trip has been that dance magnified.

“Do you think you'll become Amish one day?” Isaac asked me when I exclaimed for the fiftieth time my affinity for the lifestyle.

“This place is awesome,” Mike said almost to himself as we passed another buggy.

The next day, I was sorry to go, but camping in the Hudson Valley called, and we all said we'd come back. As we left and headed north to New York, I took note that Virginville, Blue Ball and Intercourse, Pennsylvania were all within a short drive of each other. Things were definitely starting to make sense.

real estate agent: the (ig)noble vocation

“You must be electric right now,” a friend said to me, “So open.” He was referring to my ability to sense signs from the Universe in the shadow of my mother's passing. I had been telling him about some of the things that went on for me in the days right after. More on that in a later post... For now, suffice it to say, I believe strongly that we all need to move more by instinct. Sometimes, literally – move.

We sort of have a real estate agent working for us. I say sort of because we are trying to buy a house, sometimes, when we have enough time and energy to think about it, from across the country.

We have lived in our current rental house for almost three and a half years now. That's a pretty darn long time considering our record the couple years preceding that. The horror stories were many and gruesome. At the last house, the landlady sold it out from under us nine months in. A lawyer who'd until then kept her claws hidden under soft, white gloves, she did a Jekyll/Hyde transformation on us once there was big money at stake. It sucked and I chronicled a bit of it in this blog (like here and here and here and here).

But the worst part of the whole thing was the real estate agent. No matter how much I begged the Universe to send a rogue crocodile or two her way, inevitably she'd arrive unannounced for another illegal showing, pulling up in her canary yellow Porsche.

After the sale was looking solid, the buyers' real estate agent gave me an ivy plant for a gift. How sweet. An invasive plant just for me? You shouldn't have. Really.

It was the first thing to sell at the garage sale.

I tried once to create a visualization in which I towered over the whole situation looking at all the players in miniature. I reached down and picked up the Porsche lady by the scruff of her be-otchy little neck and dropped her unceremoniously into the ocean. She got out though, and came back all dripping wet still just as evil. I think her little rat dog bit my ankle.

The first time we looked at houses for our big proposed cross-country move, we met two agents. The first showed us a crumbling mess of a house filled with leaky pipes and lots of sarongs for curtains. “Ever seen the movie 'The Money Pit'?” he asked us as we huddled hunchbacked in the damp basement. Then he laughed - a dorky guffaw that went on too long.

The next agent showed us a crazy sprawling house with amazing potential and an interesting history. (Mike is still in love with this house.) But the house had nothing to do with why ultimately we'd accept this man into our passive employ after receiving his out of date CV. The first time we met him he arrived in an old Buick with a rusty roof. He got out, a stout fellow in a knit hat. I know in my heart I hired him because of that Buick. This one was a keeper.

On a return trip to the area, I spoke to a neighbor at one of the houses we were investigating. We spoke about the neighborhood, the area in general, and about renting and buying. Without knowing who we were associated with, she volunteered about the man who is our agent: “He has a reputation for getting things done.” I'm not even sure I really believed it, but it only made me like him more.

He sends me emails in which he always inquires about my “fine family.” He's stuck with us though we can't be the most lucrative prospect around, partly because normally we aren't around. We're three time zones away. Unless of course we're there, for a rare in person exploration, standing in the doorway of another place mouthing “You've got to be kidding!” to each other, while our real estate agent nervously calls our son away from the curb.

Instincts. Maybe it's just a power thing that the relationship feels right. I've never been on the buying end before. But maybe we've reeled in a good one. I'd like to believe my instincts on this are good ones.

PS - Happy birthday wishes today to my sister, Rita.