A New Home

There's something exhilarating and terrifying about moving to a new home.

It starts with a vague idea, the supposition that maybe, possibly, there's a place out there where you belong. A place where the light falls just so, where you feel comfortable being yourself, where your ideas make sense. Maybe you've been there in your dreams; it's entirely new, yet somehow familiar. It's your space, and it's just waiting for you to arrive and occupy it.

There are things that might stand in your way. All the beautiful things that you're giving up. Some of them can be packed into boxes with bubble wrap and care. Some of them are too fragile, or anchored to the earth, and must be left behind. The most important things, of course, are not things at all, but the people who may visit you, or may silently fade into your past.


Almost a year ago, Sam and I began to suspect that our home was not in Reno, but in Minnesota. We began to contemplate summer weekends at the lake. We imagined Evie fishing with her uncle, playing with her cousins, and going to the Como Zoo with her aunties. We pictured Thanksgiving with Evie's grandparents, Christmas at our house, and snow forts in the backyard.

While we have some minor details to attend to (i.e. housing and employment), things may be beginning to fall into place. Whenever it rains in Reno, I feel like Minnesota is calling for us. It's raining tonight.

This is the fourth incarnation of Bridge Over Bottled Water. The first was an editorial column I wrote for the Carletonian. I reprised the column in my second prior life as a journalist, at the Humboldt Sun in Winnemucca. I borrowed the name from a tongue-in-cheek list of rejected album titles published by R.E.M. for the album that came to be called "Up." The third Bridge Over Bottled Water was a blog on MySpace, whose contents I shall attempt to transfer to this space.

Welcome to the newest Bridge, which will hopefully take us across the country, into Evie's childhood, and deeper into the imagination and reality of yours truly. Thank you for visiting.