East Bay!

Written on July 15th, 2017

I'm sitting here in our new bed in our new home. Its 10:30PM- Kris and I just showed up after a sudden decision to spend the weekend here instead of in Modesto, where we've been living with a friend. Kris has orientation day on Tuesday at San Francisco State, so we'll stay here until after that. This trip actually marks the beginning of our transition to this location.

So more about our new home: We are going to live with one of Kris' relatives. At their house there's a downstairs master bedroom on one side of the house and a storage/bonus room on the other side. We will essentially have the whole downstairs as our private living space- however the bonus  room is basically all taken up with storage-- mostly old boxes, some spiders and a ton of dust. We're able to clean out some space in there to use as a office/painting studio though.  We do have our own bathroom, which is nice. And of course we will have access to the kitchen and living areas upstairs, but we'll probably keep to ourselves aside from mealtimes. 

We're living in a particularly hilly part of the east bay, so this house as kind of a split-level home- meaning you enter the house upstairs and the downstairs exits into the backyard. Since we are downstairs we have a window that looks out on that backyard- mostly just overgrown plants for now. The view upstairs, however, is much better. You can see the San Francisco Bay easily from the dining room- and if this dumb tree weren't there you'd be able to see San Francisco itself. The views of SF and the bay are easily one of my favorite things about this area.

This house is located in El Cerrito, which is a small town close to the more famous cities of Berkeley, Richmond, and Oakland to name a few. Kris grew up here, in this very home for a time, so he is very familiar with the area. I've only just started to drive around here- before I was too afraid of the small, confusing roads and all the inclines. I'm not used to driving on hills! Pulling out of a stop uphill terrifies me. So its on the list of new experiences to enjoy here.

Of course it sounds terribly exciting to move to a new home in such an exciting location, but it doesn't feel exciting right now. To be honest it can feel like a failure sometimes. A reminder of the fact that I failed to secure a job and a home upon our arrival in the States. A reminder that I'm currently not making money with my art. I'm sure for Kris it has the added negative stigma of moving back to your parents' house (though its not).  It feels a little like the last resort. 

But a great friend tried to put it in perspective for us. This home isn't a last resort- it isn't what we're stuck with. Because we don't have to do this- I can look for another job, heck Kris could too. But we decided not to- we decided to go for our dreams. So this home is a blessing- a blessing that allows us to pursue those dreams. Its a pathway that gives us the freedom to work for experience instead of money- to focus on improving our skills instead of working a job that will distract us from our goals.  Our time here may not always be ideal- it may be quite painful- but all transitions are. With any luck we'll look back at our time here and appreciate it. 

In the meantime I'll try to write about all the ups and downs. This is a crazy time for us- it feels much more risky and dangerous than moving to Japan. Theres a lot at stake and tensions are already beyond high. Wish us luck.