Our family recently moved from Los Angeles to Albuquerque to be able to participate in Cohousing ABQ in person even before the buildings are built. We knew we’d be moving here soon enough and living in limbo was not a great feeling so... we took the plunge.
Our move to Albuquerque was rough. There was serious drama with the movers and the very night we moved in our dog was lost, frightened by the 4th of July fireworks. It was four days before we found our Sophie, and until then we couldn’t really begin to unpack, or breathe out. And yet, while all the stress was happening, in the midst of the chaos, I noticed something else. Although we knew Albuquerque almost not at all, we weren’t strangers here. We had moved to a place where our roots preceded us, which was a totally unique and surreal thing.
When we lost Sophie, we immediately had friends dedicated to helping us bring her home, we had surprise visits that came with hugs and fresh baked bread. We had friends reading books and drying apples with our kids, and taking us on adventurous hikes in the rain. We had trampoline backyards and private pools opened to us, and meals and more hugs.
The terrain is still unfamiliar and our routines from home have been upended, which is uncomfortable. But I know it all holds promise. I’m curious to see the way our new routines, when they eventually set in, will shape us.
As a young adult I moved often and by choice. Bouncing off landscapes and cultures very different from my own was a way of stretching myself into the person I wanted to become.
But when I started a family, a new phase of my life began. I knew I wanted roots and we began growing them in L.A., my hometown. So when we decided to make the move to Albuquerque, it was not like any move I’d made before. I mourned the warm home we’d made, the Friday night dinners with friends, and the neighbors who let my two year old water their plants (inevitably getting porch and porch furniture very wet).
We found the courage to make that leap - to leave L.A. for Albuquerque, because we were moving to a place with the promise of even deeper roots. Twenty-seven households committed to community, deeply invested in the place we’d all call home, from the shifting river at our doorsteps to the buildings we’d envisioned and worked so hard to make a reality. Even now, far from the river and without a physical foundation laid, I feel the community humming around us. Welcoming us, sharing their pain, their laughter and their bread.
The monsoon rains wake us up to the skies and keep us on our toes and the other day the neighborhood fox barked a hello under a yellow moon before trotting away into the night.
I think we’re going to like it here.
- Janey
