Blooming where I am planted—pass the fertilizer, please!

My husband and I have now been in Union City, TN for about 1.5 years.  Doug has completely adjusted.  I am making some progress in my adjustment.  I’d like to think that I take 2 steps forward for each one step backward in my adjustment.  However, sometime I feel like I am taking 2 steps backward for each step forward.

I confess that I am impatient.  That same personality trait, coupled with a strong work ethic, and a dash of perfectionism, while rewarded with a six figure salary in San Diego, can stir up conflict in southern-style "slo-mo" community life.  I have decided that it might be better to “hole up” for another year before I venture out like a native again.  Perhaps in another year I can shed some more of my Type-A West Coast ‘Achieverism’. 

So what does it look like to “hole up” for me?  It consists of speaking less and writing more.  It consists of judging less and observing more.  It consists of trying to learn a positive lesson from every jab that I have felt or unintentionally hurled. 

One of my new good friends here told me that there are a whole bunch of unwritten rules in the South.  She said, “You can’t possibly know the rules if you haven’t grown up here.”   Perhaps some of those rules can sink in through osmosis.  “Hole-ing up” may, therefore, have me planted in front of my computer more.  But rather than vegetating, I am doing two things that are new for me. 

#1:  Today is the first day of my newspaper column “Genes-R-Us” in Union City’s newspaper, The Messenger.  I hope to have one column each week, exploring some trippy scientific aspect of our bodies/health ala genomics.  The challenge is to keep it accurate but keep it simple.  My husband says that “funny” is good, too.  He says that my funny needs work, but that I have the nerd thing down.  

#2:  I have set a goal to complete my first novel by this time next year.  For the last week or so I have been plotting out the method that I will use to write my book.  I don’t mean the story line, I already know that.  I wonder if anyone has created a software package to assist novelists in mapping out their books--I am a visual thinker.  I have the design for the map in my head.

"Nerd turns novelist"… has kind of a nice ring, don’t you think?   Of course, you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say I am done with my novel.  I will use a pseudonym.   I can’t wait for all this inspirational characters to die off-- I plan to write about them now.