365 days ago, we spent a whirlwind weekend househunting in the Bismarck area. It was the weekend that the time changed, and our experiences of that weekend certainly changed many things about the way we spend ours. We approached the task with the enthusiasm of people moving into a lower-priced housing market than the one they were leaving behind. With two key criteria in mind (a solidly built house with waterfront access) we quickly found our way to our little house on the prairie.
What we never could have anticipated was the dumb luck that accompanied our choice. The kind of luck that spares your waterfront home during a 500 year flood, while other houses that were in the running suffered heartbreaking damage.
The kind of luck that brings the sort of neighbors that help you figure things out with kindness and without condescension, and with whom your only real differences of opinion are about the characteristics of a quaffable beer. Where the morning after Halloween your jack o'lanterns disappear from your yard not to be smashed to smithereens in the middle of the street but because some thoughtful neighbor tucked them into his truck alongside his own on the way to the community compost.
The kind of luck where your 5 am alarm rings and you're less than ten minutes from a swimming facility that rivals the best in America. And your friends are there waiting for you.
The kind of luck that locates you within a few short miles of an animal shelter where you discover the two little friends who help make your new house a home.
We could not have anticipated the good fortune, accidental or otherwise, that came with the choice of our home. A year later our novelty is wearing off, as is the novelty of discovering a new town. "Getting acquainted" conversations are evolving into friendships. Last week, I handed my Washington driver's license across the counter at the DOT, trading it in for a shiny new one with North Dakota creds.
We've been on double dates and hosted a houseful of cheery neighbors. We've watched the river ebb and flow and taken that deep, cleansing breath of survival. We were helped by many and in a small way did our best to give back.
Mike is learning to fly airplanes, and I am learning to make popovers. Which is proving somehow to be equally challenging.
Now, once again, it's the weekend that the time changed. We woke up to a wind advisory and snow in the forecast. Resident meteorogist Sundance is catapulting off the furniture and meowing up a bigger storm than usual. The shiny new snowblower is in the garage, fueled up and ready.
Winter is coming, and we know it will be long. And little by little, we are starting to feel like we could belong here, too.
