I’m adjusting to the new routine.
It’s been two months since I relocated, and I’m adjusting to a new routine: every morning, I walk through three towns in 2.4 miles, past the golf course and the tidy little neighborhoods, and return home to find breakfast waiting for me. My route is lined with lovely trees: walnut trees full of fruit, grand sycamores shedding their bark in the heat, old oaks with root sprawl, and the skinny column maples put in to replace their elders that have fallen. At the halfway point, I’m parallel to the NJ Transit River Line, and often coincide with the 8:45 train as it halts traffic on either side. Every other evening and every Sunday morning, we walk along the river, where I can check on the progress of the osprey chicks who are living at the yacht club boathouse.
River sunsets are spectacular, even when it is oppressively hot. The road along the Jersey side, where we stroll, acts as a promenade in the evenings. People are exercising, walking pets and children, cyclists of all ages and sizes whiz by regularly. Trees line the grassy patch between the road and the river, and there is no shortage of geese, courmerants, songbirds, and of course, the osprey family. Across the river is I-95, whose rumble is amplified, and on the river, dotted with sailboats, are the ubiquitous waverunners getting in their speed-demon impulses before the sun goes down.
Adjusting to change happens by simply doing. My old morning loop took me through downtown Cranbury, past the school and the lake, and then around the park and back. Along the way, I’d encounter people heading to the post office, the bank or the diner. I’d pass folks out walking their dogs or, during the school year, crossing guards shepherding parents and kids on their way to school. It’s an adjustment. The biggest difference, probably due to the newness of it all, and that I know no one. It’s a weird situation to be in. The neighborhoods are strictly residential, with the local businesses on the other side of the tracks. No mixed use here, no real downtown with people coming in and out of stores or walking to the post office from their homes.
I have encountered dog walkers and lawn waterers regularly, all who seem very friendly. Maybe by autumn I will have officially met people and made friends. You never know.
Once a week (sometimes every two weeks) I drive up to my old house, which echoes with its emptiness and sterility now. I have a routine there as well. I first check the house itself, adjust the thermostat if needed, refill the plug-in scent dispensers, empty the dehumidifier in the basement, turn off the lights that the last realtor left burning. Then I mow the grass and tidy the exterior. I walk through the whole house, tell it to sell itself, lock up and I’m gone, until next time. She still has a personality, that old house, but she’s not the same. She’s awaiting her next metamorphosis, I think.
She has a suitor now – a young couple, looking to start and raise a family in Cranbury. The first inspection was this afternoon, the next in 11 days from now. I cross my fingers that something I missed or overlooked doesn’t get flagged and sour the courtship. With any luck, the old girl will be filled with another family’s hopes and dreams, soon.
The next big step is contingent on everything going according to plan with this young couple and my old house. Then the search for the retirement home can commence – and I can, once again, move somewhere that I know no one and create another new routine.
