Bill and I spent the first several weeks of our move to South Carolina in a hotel. We hadn't had time to locate a home, since I had finished school on a Thursday and moved on Saturday, only to begin school that following Monday.
Bill had started a week before, exactly three days after he left his job in New Hampshire.
Feeling somewhat rudderless, and unsure of my students' reactions to a northern accent, I decided to trick them into being on my side. The last questions on their first homework assignment read,"Now that Doña Ursula lives in South Carolina, she should..."
What I quickly learned is that my South Carolina kids are like my New Hampshire kids in that, although
they like to complain that "there really is nothing to do here," they
still want people to like it.
The answers were fun. And students have been eager to hear about my reactions as I try the foods and experiences that they had suggested. Each weekend I report out on the items that I have been able to check off my list.
Here are some of the things they suggested:
Go to the drive in movies at the Big MO
Go to Shealy's Barba
Visit the zoo/museum
Go to Lake Murray
Go to Miyabi's
Go to Myrtle Beach
Eat boiled peanuts
Eat chicken bog
Try sweet tea
Visit Charleston
Go to Groncho's and get and STP
Visit the Riverwalk, Congaree National Park and Saluda Shows Park
Get a tour of the South Carolina State House- it's cool!
Eat a pizzaburger
Spend the weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Go to HiWire in Irmo
Go to Carowinds
Go to Cupcake Down South
Go to Paparoni's Grill
Go to 5 Points
Go to the Vista
Go to the South Carolina State Fair
Go to a football game
Go to the Isle of Palms
Enjoy our beautiful State. Columbia is 2 hours from whatever you want!
Stay
Learn the accents
Eat grits
Go to the Columbiana Mall
Needless to say, I don't know what half of this stuff means (what's a chicken bog?!), but I try to check something off the list every week. I am not always successful, but my students are genuinely excited when I report back to them that I have taken their suggestions. It takes about 10 minutes out of class time, but the good will I get in return has been worth it. These kids are invested in my success, and they want me to enjoy living here.
The first inkling of a rudder to guide my new life has come from my students. They are my first southern community.
And I am very grateful.
Friday, October 23, 2015
How we got here
I was in a graduate program at Middlebury when I got the Facebook message from my husband, Bill.
He had just had a fabulous interview with a prospective employer in South Carolina, and it sounded like he wanted to take it.
When I left for my residential Spanish immersion program in Vermont, about two hours north of our New Hampshire home. I had a job I loved and lived in a home I enjoyed. I was looking forward to some empty nester time with Bill since our children would now be in college, both over 300 miles away.
I mean it didn't take me completely by surprise. Bill had been complaining about our NH winters for some time, threatening more and more often to move somewhere south to sell fish tacos off a boat at the earliest opportunity. We decided that he would begin feeling out potential employers once child number two had graduated from high school.
Then it happened: the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
Superbowl Monday, we had a snow storm.
Normally during snowstorms, Bill would go to work while I, the teacher home due to a snow day, would clear the driveway.
But Bill always took the Monday after the big game as a personal day. So we had a conflict.
When it came to clearing snow, I had a method: wait until about 5 inches have fallen, then shovel. Lather, rinse, repeat until it stopped snowing.
So, the morning after yet another Patriots win, and all the controversy that came with it, I began to read a book so that snow would have time to accumulate. Bill, unaccustomed to being home during a storm, grew antsy. He wanted to shovel right away.
I told him that after a certain amount of time we could both go out to shovel the driveway, but he was unwilling to wait. He decided to face the storm alone.
After he had been outside for about half a chapter of Between Heaven and Mirth I heard him call my name from the whirling snow globe that had become my yard.
When I arrived at the door, he was already pulling himself upright, but the damage was done. He had broken his hand slipping on the ice on our stairs.
After months is various support mechanisms; casts, splints, braces, his hand was finally freed, but has never worked the same since that day.
Suddenly the headhunters looking for talented engineers with his particular skill set began to feel the tide turn their way. Bill began returning their calls, but only if they were south of the Mason-Dixon line.
When I left for grad school that summer, I was aware that Bill had an interview, but did not think much about it. After all, it would likely take him months to find a suitable match. I would have another year at my job. Bill would move wherever we would be going some time in February, I would work with a realtor to sell the house, and join him a few months later when school was out.
But on that July afternoon the Facebook message came, and I knew it was about to get complicated.
I took that Saturday off from Middlebury and drove home to talk about the implications of such a change and to offer my support. And when he accepted the job, I had to make my own decision: Do I look for a job in South Carolina right away, or wait until next year?
I decided to look right away, thinking that in July, a job near Bill's might be hard to come by, thus permitting me to avoid making any other decisions. As the fates would have it, however, I found one forty minutes away and was hired the day after my interview on Google Hangout.
Unbelievable.
So here we are. Living in South Carolina with just a few weeks' notice.
I knew it would be a big change. I know it will be a challenge. But I have decided to approach my new life in the South the same way I do when I am visiting countries overseas: with open eyes, with an open mind, and with an appreciation for the cultural differences I was about to discover.
If you, like I, find such comparisons fascinating, then read away, my friend. Read away.
He had just had a fabulous interview with a prospective employer in South Carolina, and it sounded like he wanted to take it.
When I left for my residential Spanish immersion program in Vermont, about two hours north of our New Hampshire home. I had a job I loved and lived in a home I enjoyed. I was looking forward to some empty nester time with Bill since our children would now be in college, both over 300 miles away.
I mean it didn't take me completely by surprise. Bill had been complaining about our NH winters for some time, threatening more and more often to move somewhere south to sell fish tacos off a boat at the earliest opportunity. We decided that he would begin feeling out potential employers once child number two had graduated from high school.
Then it happened: the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
Superbowl Monday, we had a snow storm.
Normally during snowstorms, Bill would go to work while I, the teacher home due to a snow day, would clear the driveway.
But Bill always took the Monday after the big game as a personal day. So we had a conflict.
When it came to clearing snow, I had a method: wait until about 5 inches have fallen, then shovel. Lather, rinse, repeat until it stopped snowing.
So, the morning after yet another Patriots win, and all the controversy that came with it, I began to read a book so that snow would have time to accumulate. Bill, unaccustomed to being home during a storm, grew antsy. He wanted to shovel right away.
I told him that after a certain amount of time we could both go out to shovel the driveway, but he was unwilling to wait. He decided to face the storm alone.
After he had been outside for about half a chapter of Between Heaven and Mirth I heard him call my name from the whirling snow globe that had become my yard.
When I arrived at the door, he was already pulling himself upright, but the damage was done. He had broken his hand slipping on the ice on our stairs.
After months is various support mechanisms; casts, splints, braces, his hand was finally freed, but has never worked the same since that day.
Suddenly the headhunters looking for talented engineers with his particular skill set began to feel the tide turn their way. Bill began returning their calls, but only if they were south of the Mason-Dixon line.
When I left for grad school that summer, I was aware that Bill had an interview, but did not think much about it. After all, it would likely take him months to find a suitable match. I would have another year at my job. Bill would move wherever we would be going some time in February, I would work with a realtor to sell the house, and join him a few months later when school was out.
But on that July afternoon the Facebook message came, and I knew it was about to get complicated.
I took that Saturday off from Middlebury and drove home to talk about the implications of such a change and to offer my support. And when he accepted the job, I had to make my own decision: Do I look for a job in South Carolina right away, or wait until next year?
I decided to look right away, thinking that in July, a job near Bill's might be hard to come by, thus permitting me to avoid making any other decisions. As the fates would have it, however, I found one forty minutes away and was hired the day after my interview on Google Hangout.
Unbelievable.
So here we are. Living in South Carolina with just a few weeks' notice.
I knew it would be a big change. I know it will be a challenge. But I have decided to approach my new life in the South the same way I do when I am visiting countries overseas: with open eyes, with an open mind, and with an appreciation for the cultural differences I was about to discover.
If you, like I, find such comparisons fascinating, then read away, my friend. Read away.
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