The course of our family's history is shaped by good-byes and new beginnings. Every two to five years, over decades, we moved from country to country, simultaneously aware of the possibility of re-inventing a better self in this uncharted territory and the need for re-affirming commitments to people who were the fabric of our life both in the country we were leaving and with family and friends back home in the U.S.
The same year that Charles retired from U.S government foreign service and we settled permanently in Beaufort, our daughter, Bronwyn, signed up to work for USAID. Choosing a life abroad is in her blood. After training in Washington, DC, she left for Nepal in 2012 tugging our heartstrings behind her. Eleven years later and three posts behind her, she received her upcoming post to Bangladesh with a June 6, 2023 departure. Lots of sweet good-byes ahead, happy for her good life, but already missing her painfully when she sends the text: on board, ready to take off.
Three years ago, I helped her unpack her shipment from Tanzania at her cute, but oh-so tiny historic capitol hill home and nothing could keep me from helping her with this upcoming pack-out week in late May. I know first-hand how stressful and physically exhausting it is to close down a house and pack for an international move. It's hard to buy "things" for Bronwyn who acquires everything she needs; it pleases me to provide something for her that money can't buy.
Bronwyn's upcoming move made fresh the wound that Charles, Bronwyn, Chas and I caused our parents/grandparents saying good-bye over and over again for twenty-five years and seven posts. Also, awareness renewed that we were granted a unique opportunity at each farewell to look into each other's eyes as if for the last time, really feeling each other's hugs and tears.
Perhaps a bit melodramatic, but I have learned that the sweetest good-byes are those where the clock is set to show and express love at regular intervals throughout life, never taking tomorrow for granted or running life on automatic pilot. That is the gift from these major life upheavals.
Already experienced with moves from DC to Nepal, to Tanzania, and back to Washington, why did Bronwyn need her mom for closing out her capitol hill house? Especially realizing how tired I was from three weeks of unpacking boxes in our new house in Beaufort just prior to my drive to DC. Let me count the ways.
As she started sorting her things, Bronwyn texted me a photo of her plants and told me that "Monstera" was the hardest to leave behind, having grown it from one rooted leaf given to her by a friend. I was reminded in large and small ways of the emotional toll.
Nothing is more appreciated than a friend or family member who shows up to help. It's not just time and labor, it's most importantly an emotional lift. A week of unpacking floor to ceiling boxes, alone, was made lighter by the arrival of my oldest, dearest friend Sally Brett, who came armed with her leather tool pouch filled with box cutters, scissors, tape, labeling materials and a reassuring smile. "I am here for you my friend."
Photos: When Sally arrived every room was filled with boxes to unpack. Bit by bit she helped me clear out one area where we could have a moment of zen.
I followed Sally's lead and gathered up my packing materials in Chas's hand-painted, Bolivian Easter basket and drove north.
When international movers arrive, things happen fast. A crew of men and women do a walk through, discuss their strategy and then scatter like worker bees. There is a frantic desire to run from one to the next to assess and advise while at the same time trying to stay ahead of them as you clean out cabinets and closets in another area that you hoped to have finished before their arrival. Octopus tentacles are ideal, but four eye are better than two to catch mistakes, give special instructions, and label boxes correctly as they are packed. That's also where I came in.
U.S. Foreign Service operates on a by-gone principle: The diplomat is a man, married to a stay-at-home muse-wife who has the time and role to spend months preparing for a move, pre-packing, setting up complex labeling systems and seamlessly orchestrating the move while she also bakes cookies and serves tea parties for diplomatic functions and hosts farewell parties for the children before the family's departure. With a smile and stunning dress. Times have changed. Remember Hillary's announcement that she did not intend to stay home and bake cookies if Bill was elected, and the public outrage that followed her comment? These days the bulk of new hires are single women who are given only two days leave to organize for a pack-out. That's where retired foreign service mothers come in.
We both knew that the pack-out would be a five-star nightmare and that I was experienced for the job. Bronwyn had a storage unit filled with boxes and furniture from her Nepal post that would be shipped to Bangladesh but also held camping gear and other summer toys that had to be relocated to a smaller storage unit for easy access during home leave. Back at her house, we had to divide and separate clothing, important papers, electronics and other personal items (four checked bags plus carry-on) for herself and dog crates and paraphernalia for her Cardigan Corgis, Shwari and Paxi.
Photos: Taking apart the living room with a worried dog standing by, "Don't forget me!"
We had to identify two hundred and fifty pounds for air shipment that would arrive in three months and a sea shipment that might or might not arrive in six months, while making sure that one doesn't get mixed with the other. The remainder of furniture, art and household goods would be placed in long-term government storage. A big scramble.
The challenge was sorting things in a house with five rooms the size of closets and hauling stuff up and down a twisty 1860's staircase with low head clearance. Master organizers, the two of us developed a plan and went to work. To do this, she had to trust me to make decisions independently as we worked in different parts of the house.
What were the items I packed in my air shipments, the things longed for in those first three months such as a good set of knives, kitchen gadgets, herbs and spices, coat hangers, clothing, a comfortable pillow, sticky note pads and pens, office, tech, and hobby materials? I made a few mistakes with preparing the sea shipment such as failing to pack her NC barbecue sauce and other specialty food items she had purchased for the move, discovered too late, but she forgave me, no grudges, just gratitude.
I received lessons, as well. My daughter knows me well and had thus warned, "Mom, I know you are coming for work. But I want us to also have some fun. I want to share with you some of the things I enjoyed while living in DC on Capitol Hill."
She planned to take me to Shwari's (cardigan corgi) dog training facility to watch preparations for his final session – an agility test, but we had to weigh priorities and decided he would have to take the test the next week without practice. He did great!
She wanted us to sit in the back garden, if only briefly, to appreciate the dogwood and azaleas that her dad helped her plant to remind her of North Carolina.
For my second night in DC, Bronwyn booked tickets for a Prohibition Era Mystery at the Congressional Cemetery where she walks Shwari every morning before work. We invited Bronwyn's friend, Amanda, to join us, a farewell gift to one of her first friends made in the dog park on a leash with Bristow, the dog who became one of Shwari's two best friends.
In a grand friendship offer, Amanda offered to keep Shwari for the week while we packed, calling it a best dog friends extended sleepover. Amanda is a keeper!
The "Gentlemen's Gambit" at the cemetery was great fun, starting out with bourbon cocktails served in a crypt to set the tone for our goal: finding the grave of DC's most notorious bootlegger. We searched the cemetery, meeting interred residents from the Prohibition Era (Doc Smith, J.Edgar Hoover, Loseceloa Howard, Mary Fuller who starred in the first film adaptation of Frankenstein, and women's suffragettes- Margeuerite DuPont Lee and Alice Lee Moque, each providing us with a clue.) Bit by bit we discovered that the password was "poker" and went to retrieve our prize (a shot glass) inside an eerie chapel tinted with blue lights.
As we searched for clues, Bronwyn showed me her favorite headstone. As we left the dusk shrouded cemetery, a thunderstorm sent us running to an upscale gourmet food hall "The Roost" where we laughed with glee to discover the bathroom had paper towels versus blowers to dry off before seating.
On Sunday, we walked to Eastern Market where Bronwyn said good-bye to her favorite vendors and purchased olive oil from a merchant whose family owns an olive grove in Greece. Bronwyn gave me a bottle to enjoy at home, and I savor it drop by drop, as a toast to our balance of work and play.
At the market, she helped me choose a tablecloth for my back porch and I bought her a cotton dress printed with pink leopards for her birthday. A needed and lovely break from packing.
Photos: Margaret and Brosie; and Shwari & Brosie
In March, when I told Bronwyn I would come for a week to help her with the pack-out, she immediately made difficult-to-obtain reservations at an Italian restaurant, Caruso's Grocery, in her neighborhood. So we enjoyed that as well, along with her friend, Margaret, whose dog Brosie, was Shwari's other best friend.
With all we had to do, it seemed crazy to stop work in late afternoon, dress, and go out on the town. But in looking back, these evenings celebrating a day's hard work together will be the most lasting memories of her pack-out week.
Another unexpected lesson was the opportunity to observe first-hand my daughter's generosity to her less fortunate neighbors and her respectful interactions with them. When I arrived she had been talking with Carlton about hiring him to help clean up her back patio area. Over the years he has helped her with the little plots for pots and chairs in the front and back. She told me that Carlton, homeless during most of this time, was proud that he now has his own apartment in the subsidized housing project nearby. He was a happy recipient for Bronwyn's small appliances, linens and food staples she will not need abroad. He told her he loves to cook and was appreciative. The hired-work element along with a friendship developed over time gave dignity to the "handouts."
One concern her dad and I had had about her buying this house was its location one block over from a subsidized housing project. On the contrary she enjoyed lively conversations with these neighbors as they walked past her house and developed warm relations over the three years. A fully decorated Christmas tree by her front door was always shared with one of the elderly residents before Bronwyn left for the holidays. The grandmother recipient told Bronwyn how the tree and its lights thrilled her grandchildren. Charles and I had wasted worry about the housing project.
The experienced and personable movers worked over two days and, as far as we know, did not mix up different allotments. We were impressed and relieved.
After most of the boxes were packed, Bronwyn and I celebrated at Bella Café with their signature dish Moules Frites, the same celebration meal we had enjoyed three years before when her house offer was accepted.
The next day the packers loaded the air and sea shipments and packed up final boxes for long-term storage. Seeing that things were nearly finished, Bronwyn and I hugged good-bye. I loaded Monstera (the plant) in my Subaru promising to care for it until she retires from USAID. Now, that's an incentive to live a long life. I also rescued Bronwyn's snake plant that my Beaufort friend Elizabeth agreed to foster.
Back in Beaufort, I would have one day to find cushions, bowls and toys for the dogs and bed linens for Bronwyn in my own half-unpacked house. In the meantime, Bronwyn wrapped up fairly big loose ends like selling her car. (Amanda to the rescue again!) Bronwyn then joined her dad and me for a week in Beaufort with pups before flying to Bangladesh.
Bronwyn chose to give us her vacation week and this was a gift. She helped us with tasks at the new house in Beaufort but we also made time for good food and wine, walks on the beach and some serious porch-sitting, my favorite activity.
Her dad arranged a personal tour of Bonehenge Whale Center at the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort with the animated director, Keith Rittmaster, knowing this would be a delight for our daughter who is highly interested in pelagic creatures, sharks and whales.
It was a joy to have this breather together after the chaotic week that had passed. The dogs loved Beaufort. Shwari pulled his leash straight to his favorite bar, Fishtowne Brewery, where he joined in a game of Bingo; visited his favorite shop, Harbor Specialty, where he is much loved by Nancy, Susan and Barbara who give him treats; and the Rhum Bar, his favorite dock-side restaurant. Baby Paxi followed Shwari's lead, learning to love all things Beaufort.
Both dogs were a bit confused by the new house. Shwari still wanted to turn down Marsh Street, the house he knew for his first five years of visits. Paxi tried to drag us up the steps of the waterfront condo where we lived during our renovation, the only place that six-month Paxi knew. During the week, Bronwyn made time for Paxi to reunite with her mom (a Sara Austin Cardigan Corgi), knowing the importance of mother and daughter relationships.
The week after Bronwyn left I was in a funk. Was it haze from Canadian wildfires or my feet and heart mired in the quicksand of loss? Our move-in to the Ann Street house and her pack-out from DC behind me, I finally saw a window to return to writing each morning. But I stared at the computer. I saw no way to frame and verbalize the muddle in my head. I stumbled through the week, not depressed, just lost.
I generally follow a schedule that enables prime time for favorite past-times, leaving enough time for household tasks while keeping the fun and creative activities front and center. I like having something to account for at the end of week, to tell me I am using what's left of my time on earth in a fruitful way. But this funk kicked me in the butt as if to say, "What does all that matter?" So, I moped around and no words flowed from brain to computer.
Then something happened to change my outlook. It was there all along but I had forgotten how to look. It's the 'brick wall syndrome," where you crash, land on the ground in a daze, and slowly open your ideas to discover you are lying in a patch of buttercups. So it was with me this past week.
A monarch butterfly glided by my new garden checking out the milkweed planted just for her. The next day a lovely white butterfly, symbolic of angels and providence, turned my head. I had not seen a butterfly or a bird in the back lot of our house during the noisy renovation process, in spite of my intentional landscaping to attract coastal butterflies.
This gave me incentive to jump back into The Butterfly Project, taking the next step in my abandoned plan to study, paint, plant and record appearances of all coastal butterflies. I checked on my dill, carrots, parsley and fennel for the swallowtails. Oops, a bunny!
I went to the garden center and bought a passion flower vine loaded with blossoms. Charles made the loveliest trellis of woven string so the Gulf Fritillaries can flutter in and find her host plant. I have renewed interest to build a pollinator garden and provide the host plant for each of the butterfly species I want to attract.
The butterfly visitors motivated me to hang our new bird feeder. May as well have a critter party. I went out to Edgewater Gardens, a vendor who sells special feed that attracts Painted Buntings. It took several days before a sparrow found the feeder, and then a gang of his friends followed. Then the chickadees arrived, fighting for space, followed by purple finches.
Charles rigged up a hanger for the feeder just inches from the screen porch. If I am still with my morning coffee, I can see every feather on their tiny bodies.
As a sidebar, I will mention that these everyday birds are a far cry from the colorful and exotic buntings we attracted at our previous house, but I still feel happy to serve breakfast to our backyard birds. Hope springs eternal that the buntings will find us again. The wonderful couple, Bill and Melissa Symonds, who bought our house have been willing slaves to the buntings, making sure the feeder is full, even when they travel.
They delight in sending us photos, bragging a bit with this superimposed photo of a male and female. I have jokingly threatened to lure their buntings to our house, which is two blocks away, but they tell me, "No Way! Our buntings love us!" As a peace settlement they gave us a new feeder, a replacement for the one we left them, not wanting any disruptions to the bunting visits while they were moving into their house.
Saturday I went to the Farmer's market. I've only been once since the season began. I felt that I could not spare the time, with the house to set up and a garden to plant. Before I passed four stalls I had a half dozen conversations with favorite vendors and friends. I bought a terracotta and white pottery mug with a glazed fern design from Justin and Jen. It reminded me of the cascades of fiddleheads down the mountain sides of Bhutan in spring. Now my morning coffee comes with a happy memory of the most numinous country I have visited.
I bought a book of poetry, The Rabbits Could Sing, from my friend Amber Flora who is a poetry professor at East Carolina but also rescues abandoned animals and creates glass mobiles that she sells from time to time at the Beaufort market. We planned that she will come for lunch next time she does our market. I encouraged her to rejoin our Zoom-In writer's critique group that she dropped out of due to the pressures of her university work and publishing deadlines. In those moments of touching base, we reminded each other that the special bond of women writers in this group is a rare gift.
And then I ran into my friend Jill and we enjoyed a joyous lunch on my back screened porch, talking the way friends do who have known each other for twenty years. I never made it to the vegetable stalls at the Farmer's Market because I was busy meeting and greeting all my friends and wondering how I can be so blessed to live in this special community where everyone gathers on Saturdays at the market for the sheer delight of recognizing the community we have formed and to buy local from our farmers, bakers, and craftspeople.
That afternoon I took Amber Flora's book to my front porch and spent the afternoon under the spell of her words: I have picked you a gallon of cranberries, tart to taste. When the past slips over the field like a red dress, I lie down in the tundra on this mountain pass and belong to the sky again. Some priorities are chosen not because they allow you to earn a living, but because they allow you to earn a soul.
The next morning, I spent hours working in my garden, taking time to look at every plant and note their growth, their changes, and their needs. Our friends, Stephanie and Jason, called to say they were in town so we invited them for drinks on the porch. She brought homemade granola, loaded with cashews and almonds. I went for a long walk-a daily exercise I had abandoned for weeks because I thought I was too busy. Forgetting that my walk improves health and wellbeing and gives me a perk: During the walk I listen to an audible novel or call a family member or friend who matters to me and needs to know it.
The next morning over a bowl of yogurt, early summer fruit and Stephanie's granola, I realized that my funk had flown away and that I was ready to write again. I had been physically exhausted and emotionally flattened but came to see the ingredients of happiness and wellbeing that give me energy for life. People to care about. Nature to care about. And the way they reciprocate, enriching my life.
The first story I wanted to tell was helping Bronwyn prepare for a move and the pain of saying goodbye, remembering the countless times this has occurred to us as a foreign service family and its meaning/value/lessons. As I packed for my trip to DC I should have decided to take photos and notes and pay mindful attention to the experience. In doing so our conversations while working would reach a higher level of awareness and reflection. On the contrary, I passed through the week one foot in front of the other, focusing more on how my knees were hurting from those steps than the importance of capturing what was precious about being there. I took few photos and none of the two of us together. The story of sweet goodbyes haunted me and I wondered what pieces of it I could now grasp.
I've only written three blogs since Christmas, feeling overwhelmed by our big move, too scattered to sit down and write or even to think beyond what's next to tackle on my list. I had initially taken up blog writing three years ago as a structure for writing my memoir. It quickly evolved from thinking about my life in a linear way past to present to focusing on present as it reveals the past and provides lessons for living. When I started looking at my blog as a living memoir, I became hyper alert to the present, digging for the seeds of a story in everyday events.
In the past months, I had walked in a fog and lost the ability to be present in the moment. Fingers on the keyboard, I was jarred to realize that I had strayed from the habit of tuning into the magic of the moment the way my blog writing trained me to do. The emotions one feels at any moment will never again be experienced with such intensity.
Take notes, take photos, be present. Live every day as if you are writing a blog about it. And if not every day, at least the life events and dearest moments that you will want to hang onto and remember. So, yes it was a sweet goodbye, but then what?
I needed to write this story to explain what the time with Bronwyn meant to me and what it exemplified in the story of our family life. When people are overly tired, over-worked, and despondent, it is hard to turn life into art. But life is art. Every day is a miracle. The way out of the doldrums and into this exquisite and never to be repeated day on earth is this:
Flip over in the grass where you collapsed from crashing into the brick wall and count the buttercups, those little gratitudes.
Photo credits:
Cover photo by Tim Pemmington printed with permission.
Final photo of Bronwyn newly arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and already adapting to local culture taken by Katerina Don.
Other photos taken by the author and her daughter.
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