Moving In

I need to turn over the proverbial leaf with a new home.  I need a new house.  I need a new address.  That’s why I went and moved into this new space today.

I’d started blogging in 2006, just as I was leaving Portugal.  I started on the old school hipster Blogger.com.  I mostly began because Lisa Borden was blogging and I like to do what she does.  (It’s fun to dig through someone else’s archives to find evidence that we really did cross some continents, but not without each other’s help.  I’ve never been good at moving on my own.)

In truth, I started blogging because I knew I needed a tangible way of marking the changing of seasons.  Leaving Portugal was a tenacious thing for me.  I’d lived there for 3.5 years, and probably could have stayed a good long time after.  I knew that one day, I’d need to look back and start to try to understand it all.

In some ways, that time for me is now.

Here I am, in Los Angeles, after nearly 5 years.  I can feel, with every iota of my little Nelly self, that I’m moving into a new and significant chapter.  Certain things are marking such borders.  Things like moving into a new shared co-working space.  Things like the creation of a new community house.  And many other sundries.

I’m writing now to say that this is more than just a blog to me.  It’s a mile marker.  I need it.

If you are one of the few who’ve journeyed along with me and my scribbles along the way, I’m thanking you.  And I will continue to thank you.  In many ways, this new blog is a way to say, “thank you.”  I hope you’ll still want to stick around.

[texture credit to Patrick Hoesley]