Soppho

After several months and a good deal of half-hearted searching, I’m pleased to report that I am finally moving, and Y Chrome is officially moving in with me. (His body already lives here, but his clothes, furnishings, and shameful boy things I’m sure I’m about to discover, have all taken up residence elsewhere.) The move is long overdue. My apartment woes have been well-documented and, though I only ever expected to have a brief stay in my current digs, I’ve lived in Charlottesville for five years, and I haven’t moved once.

My leasing company has been desperately seeking a new sucker renter, and it hasn’t been going very well for them. They’ve shown the apartment no fewer than 25 times with no takers. Suddenly, I’m feeling even more confident in my decision to leave, but substantially less confident in my housekeeping and decorating skills. Come on, people, it’s not that bad! A fine sheen of cat hair on everything has wonderful insulating properties!

With or without a new renter in place, in a short month and a half I will be moving out of Charlottesville and to a rental house Y Chrome’s family owns. The decision wasn’t driven much by cost; we’re paying rent and, although it’s far cheaper than Charlottesville, the rate is exactly what you’d find for any rental property in the area. It’s more about wanting change. I want to have access to the hustle and bustle of a college town from time to time, but I’m finding more and more that I want to go home to quiet at the end of the day. Y Chrome is, and always has been, a country boy and I, too, like open space and to look up at the sky at night and see stars instead of street lamps and stadium lights. We want a dog and a place for him to run around. When Y Chrome is up working on the farm until 3 AM, I’ll feel better about him walking down the driveway to get home, rather than driving back into Charlottesville, as he does now. And, if all of that didn’t sound wonderful enough, a dear friend of mine who also happens to be Y Chrome’s cousin—and the person who introduced us in the first place—is moving out to the farm next month.

I haven’t actually seen the inside of the house yet, and you may rightfully think I’m insane for signing on without seeing it, but it’s over four times larger than my apartment, and Y Chrome assures me that it’s a perfectly nice place to live. The latter point is an important one. Not because I trust Y Chrome’s judgment (have you seen these glasses?), but because if he is wrong, well, let’s just say it will be featured prominently in all decision-making discussions for the next decade. And this will probably be a very pivotal decision-making decade. I look forward to naming my kids after children’s lit characters that made a big impact on me growing up, starting with Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo (no one toss the kid into a well, okay?).

People ask if I will miss this old place. I probably will. I mean, right now if I have to reach the flour on the top shelf of my kitchen cabinet, all I have to do is drag the couch over to the stove, then stand on the back of the couch and hang on to the fridge for balance and try not to rip the already-sagging cabinet from the wall. The couch is two feet away from the stove; how the hell am I going to push it 30 feet into another room? How exhausting!

Still, I’m not sure how well I’ll adapt to farm life. Really, it’s not the rural setting, but the way of life on a real, working family farm. We’ll have our own place and be spending most of our time there, of course, but I’ll certainly be out and around the farm more than my current every-other-month schedule.

A few weeks ago I went out to the farm to have dinner with Y Chrome’s family. Within two minutes of my arrival I was up to my elbows in cold water, pulling the stems off of several pounds of spinach. Y Chrome, in the meantime, had been dragged over to the couch by his grandmother to sit and relax. And then I realized I’d carelessly left his smoking jacket, cigar, and brandy at my apartment. And even if I had remembered them, how could I ever show my face, presenting them to him while still wearing my shoes and being distinctly and conspicuously not pregnant? Damn! And how I was pining for a new washer and dryer set for my birthday this year!

It was a beautiful night when we sat down to eat: cool and pleasant, the sun was just beginning to set, coloring the sky a fiery pink and orange, the wind was blowing softly; the patio had a gorgeous view of the mountains above us and the orchard below. Calm and lovely and relaxing, right?

Only in 20-second increments.

Then, Y Chrome’s uncle spots a group of deer in the orchard below.

And before I know it, half of my dinner companions are all but dangling off the porch rails, trying to get a better look. Someone scrambles inside for the binoculars. Y Chrome’s aunt excitedly offers to fetch her gun for anyone who owns a penis. She asks so frequently and with such enthusiasm that I’m expecting her to tear away her clothes to reveal the garb of Rambo, and pull an M60 out of the loaf of pound cake sitting before her. And I? I am mouthing across the table to Y Chrome, “If someone shoots a deer while I’m eating my dinner, I’m walking home.”

So, naturally, 2 minutes later he exclaims, “One of them is rubbing his antlers on the tree!” (the reason they shoot them—it destroys the trees). And everyone leans further over the porch rail until they’re practically swinging like trapeze artists in Carhartts rather than spandex, and there is a loud GAASSSPing noise: the unmistakable sound of 5 Southerners all getting the vapors at the very same time.

Oh, it’s on now, Y Chrome. Cherry red front loading washer be damned; when we get home, your smoking jacket is gonna get it! And I am all whisper-yelling to Y Chrome across the table, “I WILL DESTROY YOUUUUUUUUUU”. And he’s all *blink,* “Who’s kicking me repeatedly in the shin?!?!”

Fortunately, no one worked up the gumption to shoot the deer (I suspect they were being polite; the sort of politesse that I don’t expect to continue as I become a more frequent dinner guest) before they went scampering back up to the mountain.

Also! And this is the most important issue of all! I can’t live in a rural area—I can’t even pronounce the word. Seriously, it’s some sort of brain block, like my inability to acknowledge the existence of people who wear seersucker suits. How can I be suited to live in a place that I can’t even pronounce? I’m convinced they made the Rural Juror episode of 30 Rock just for me.

And now to see if Ruhhr living is the life for me.