Thomas Wolfe, Gertrude Stein and Me

Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again, and Gertrude Stein famously said of Oakland, “there is no there there.” To the extent that Wolfe’s dictum stands for the entire Bay Area, I can now say I have proven him wrong. As for Ms. Stein, there may be no “there” in Oakland, but there will soon be a “me.”

I have decided to switch firms (hence the distractions lately), and will be starting next month at a firm in Oakland. There are many complications arising from trying to move a well-established household, and deep emotional ties in SoCal that will make the leaving very hard, but we’re all excited about the future and the new opportunities we will find up north. Thankfully, we will still be close to Cheryl’s family (although certainly not as close as here), we’ll be significantly closer to my family in Oregon, and I may get a chance to spend more time with friends from “back home.” Plus, the schools in the suburbs east of Oakland where we will likely live are substantially better than the ones Kelly would be headed to here. Of course, there are countless unknowns: where to live, what church to go to, what schools the kids will attend, what friends we will make, etc. Still, the move is a good one for me professionally, and Cheryl and the kids have been incredibly supportive. I could not have begun to contemplate something like this without Cheryl’s support and approval, which she gave willingly.

There will be much to say in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’ll have to start burying all the Dodgers paraphernalia we have around the house – don’t want to make a bad first impression with the new neighbors.