Tomorrow my family and I will load my worldly possessions - well, those that I brought to Chicago, anyway, since I left a lot of books in WI - into the van and begin a journey. Up until now, the farthest I had moved was here to Chicago, and the only time I've lived outside of the Midwest was four months in Germany (not as different as you might think, though perhaps I say that because I am German - by descent, at least). Tomorrow I set off for the nation's capital - what an adventure!
What strikes me as particularly interesting - and my mother, the genealogist, has pointed it out repeatedly - is that in a sense I'm retracing steps. Mom's ancestors on the paternal side were Scottish, and when they came to this country, they settled in Virginia. Eventually they moved west, through the Cumberland Gap and went to Kentucky, then on to Missouri. Mom's Dad then moved up to Wisconsin with his wife to teach music at my undergraduate college. So that cycle - Virginia to Mid-South to Midwest - is being reversed by my move - Midwest through the Mid-South to the District of Columbia, which is practically Virginia (yes, I know that the land that makes up the district used to belong to Maryland, not Virginia).
In preparation for the move I've been packing, as evidenced in the last few posts, and I've got more to do this afternoon. I've already unraveled internet (and, it turns out, local phone, which I'll need to operate the remote access on the door, since I don't intend to traipse down three floors every time someone comes to visit like I've had to in Chicago), taken a [tearful] leave of the boy, and packed most of the apartment. There is, however, more to do, so off I'll go. In future I'll write posts that are actually interesting, I imagine, but for the time being (since time is short), modest progress updates will have to do.
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