Regrets: number 2

Travel. We didn't travel enough when we lived in the US. It wasn't that we didn't want to. Our restrictions were money, time and distance.

Money
We arrived in the US just after the crest of the Easyjet wave had broken in the UK, when you could fly to European cities for literally £10 a ticket, or occasionally even less. Not that we had done any flying to European cities, me not being a huge fan of city-breaks with toddlers/babies, but our youngest was nearly 3 when we went to the US, and I thought we'd be in a phase where that kind of travel would be more enjoyable. I envisaged us flying to interesting destinations: New York, Washington, San Francisco... Seattle... It was a shock to discover that the budget airline idea hadn't reached the US, and that to take a family of five anywhere by plane would cost several hundred dollars. I also hadn't realised that our little city, in the middle of the country, not being a hub, had a very limited choice of destinations, so that to get to New York, Washington, San Francisco or Seattle would involve two flight. That always ends up being the best part of a day, which makes the idea of a weekend jaunt a lot less feasible.

Time
The first aspect of time being a limiting factor was the way the school year is arranged. The UK school year is full of breaks: Christmas and Easter, and then half-terms here, there and everywhere (well, I suppose they're half-way through each of three terms, so not exactly "here, there and everywhere" but if you've lived the routine of the US school year, that's what it feels like when you compare the British system). We had three days off at Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks at Christmas, a week in March, and that was it. Yes, there's scope in there for trips, but if you want to be at home for Christmas and Thanksgiving, it didn't seem like much. Of course there is the hugely long three-month summer vacation, but of the six years were there, for three summers we came back to the UK, one was taken up with surgery and chemotherapy, and one involved our final move back. Only in our first summer did we really have the opportunity to explore the US. I guess the expat family will always be juggling their resources between making the most of their new adventure and keeping in touch with their roots.

Distance
I'm sure it would have been different if we'd lived in another location. If we were on the East coast or West coast, there would have been places of interest to drive to. But we were right in the middle of the country. It's hard to get a feel for the scale of journeys involved in the US until you live there. We all know it's big, but to experience what exactly that means is a different thing. In UK terms, it was a day's drive before you reached somewhere that looked or felt different. Yes, driving is easier and we had a big comfortable minivan (people carrier), but even so, it did mean that trips were for holidays rather than week-ends. In terms of places that we could visit within a day, or even an overnight stay, we pretty much exhausted those in our first year. I know you'll find that hard to believe, but there are vast tracts of the Midwest where there is nothing but wheat field upon wheat field, for tens, if not hundreds, of miles. If you do stop, the choice is this McDonalds or the next one. When you reach another big city, it feels exactly like your home one, all on a grid system, and you end up eating in a chain restaurant, because it's hard to find anything else in a city you don't know (I expect Google and TripAdvisor has made this rather easier now, but five to ten years ago, it was hard to get beyond the main street in a strange place).

This all sounds rather more negative than I meant it to. I suppose I have in my mind an anonymous reader taking me to task: "Seriously? There wasn't anywhere interesting you could go for a week-end? You lived in another country for all those years and you hardly took your children anywhere!". I want to explain to that voice what it was like, and I guess that is one of the frustrations of the returning expat, that you can put something into words, but as your audience hasn't experienced the context, it's hard to make it understandable. You'll just have to take my word for it.

I like to think, as well, that it's a sign of how we assimilated to where we were. After our first summer, I started conversations at the school gate as I would do in Britain. "Did you have a good summer? Did you go anywhere nice?" I was amazed at how few people had been on vacation at all. People had perhaps visited family for a week-end, but very few had had what we would call a holiday. I stopped asking those questions, because they weren't the right questions to ask. I started asking "Did you have a good summer? What sports teams and camps did your kids enrol in?" Perhaps, over time, my travel aspirations dwindled.

Having said all of the above, we did manage some travel. I went off on some cheeky week-ends on my own: to Chicago for the week-end of the Expat Brits Blogging Six, to New York to visit an old friend and meet up with my brother's family on holiday there, to Chicago again to stay with the hugely hospitable Expat Mum who also put up my brother while he was on a conference. They were real high points. We did also craft some trips with our kids. We went to San Diego in our first year, when we were flush with cash from our initial move when the pound had been particularly strong against the dollar. We went to Colorado too, a 12-hour drive from home, four times in all - or was it five? The place we went to in Colorado became special to us, and we loved returning there. We may not have taken the children to a great number of different places, but we do all share strong and happy memories of that one place. There is something nice about returning to the same location over three or four years, and that thought goes some way towards dissipating any regrets I have, if ever I look at a map of the big, big continent of North America, and think "New York... Washington... San Francisco... Seattle...".

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You can spot the ones who've lived in the Midwest

The weather forecast predicts snow. I have to go to a supermarket. I have to stock up. Snow coming means you stock up.

I know the snow will be a feeble half inch which will have degenerated into slush by lunchtime. I live about a mile from three different supermarkets, along main roads. I live a 10-minute walk from a petrol station which has a pretty decent shop. But I can't help it. Snow coming means you stock up.

We're going away on Wednesday for 5 days. Between now and then, the children have lots of events on at school - which means they will be having their meals at school instead of dashing home for a quick food stop (one of the great boons of them being day pupils at a boarding school - wonderful flexibility on the dinner front). There is a bag load of sweet treats on the kitchen counter left over from a 'do' Husband organised last night. We are not short of food. But I can't help myself. Snow coming means you stock up.

So just as I found myself explaining to Mid-Westerners that no, I wasn't crazy, but if the sun comes out, you have to get the children out into the garden, even if it's winter and freezing cold, now in the same way, I find myself explaining to the check-out boy in Morrisons that I can't understand why the place isn't packed with people shopping before the snow comes. He looks at me as if I'm a little deranged, but I tell him: "Snow coming means you stock up".

Photo credit: Daily Telegraph

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My Postsecret - Part I

Do you follow Postsecret? For those of you who don't know it, it's a website which invites people to send in their secret, anonymously, on a homemade postcard. Every Sunday, a selection are posted, sometimes randomly, sometimes on a theme.

I liked Postsecret better in its early days. Now, it is a phenomenon (isn't that what we call these things?). It's spawned books, and lecture tours, and events at which people occasionally propose to each other - which surely is the definition of being mainstream. It's done a tremendous amount of good. It's become a torch bearer for suicide prevention, raising money and awareness.

I miss its early incarnation, though. When I discovered Postsecret, back in 2007, it mirrored a couple of the elements that I found important in blogging. 

First, the need to share of oneself, and the opportunity to do that anonymously. Postsecret tapped into something that bloggers at that time would recognise: the way the internet can be a place of conspiracy, a place where confessions can be made, a strangely safe place for that. 

Second, the fun, the creativity, that can come with digging up a confession and airing it. Oh yes. The creativity that Postsecret unleashed was striking. The secrets were imaginative - many of them  sad, some thoughtful, some just totally random. I liked the card that read "Why are everyone's secrets on Postsecret so sad? My secret makes me happy!" I love the creativity behind the design of the postcards. Arty, jokey, brash, subtle, rude, startling, beautiful, disturbing... you name it, it's there in a Postsecret postcard. 

I don't like Postsecret in 2013 nearly so much. Now, most of the secrets are about sex. (Why does everything gravitate towards sex, given half a chance?) Many of them are designed to be shocking. Reading the cards used to be like whispering with a friend in the corner of a party, and now it's more like being trapped in a conversation with the party bore. Some of the fun has gone out of it, for me. I still read it, though, for the gems that are still to be found there.

Back in 2007, I made a postcard for Postsecret. I'll tell you about it in my next post. 

PS. Do you prefer this big typeface? Is it easier on the eyes than my previous minuscule one? Is it too big? - and if the answer to that last question is 'yes', then can anyone let me in on the Blogger secret, of how to have a typeface that is between 'normal' and 'large'. It seems like a big jump between the two. 
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