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The blizzard that broke the transplant's back
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If what they say is true (and by they, I mean me), every transplant has a story; the reason behind their big move to Arizona.
In my case, the main reason was that in the Northeast, there isn't always a lot of sunshine. In fact, it is often wickedly cold. And my husband Jimmie doesn’t like cold. He seems to be one of those people who feels blue when they don’t see the sun for months at a time. He's also an avid golfer and was living in a place that only afforded a few months a year of "golf weather". Every time we went on a trip to a warm spot, he wanted to stay longer. In fact, he never wanted to go home. But I figured that’s what vacations are all about. Doesn't everyone get suckered in by a beautiful setting? Don't we all, after a couple of days, do the old "We could start a business and live here! Let's look at houses!" routine? So I pooh-poohed his whole desire to move to Florida or someplace warm every time he brought it up. After all, people don’t up and move away simply to get warm. Usually they put on a sweater.
Then came the winter of 1996. .jpg)
If you lived in the Northeast that winter, you still remember it. You probably still have nightmares about it. It was one blizzard after another, as in LOTS of major snowstorms, incredibly even worse than the bad enough previous year. But there was none worse than "The Blizzard of '96".
It hit in early January. The weather forecast was on the news for days but I naively expected just another storm in a string of many. However this turned out to be not just another snowstorm. New Jersey had record snowfalls and most of the state was buried under more than two feet of snow. It was the state's most paralyzing blizzard of the twentieth century. No one went anywhere for three days, and all roads were closed including, for the first time in history, the New Jersey Turnpike. If you were so inclined you could play in the middle of what was normally a very busy street but was now carless.
Now usually when a really big snow hit, maybe once every five or ten years, it would be fun. But not that winter. We'd had so many storms by then, it was pure cabin fever. My one outing was trudging through the snow carrying a huge bag of laundry to our neighbor’s house because the pipe to our washer had frozen. Even our kids complained, "No more snowmen!" They were done.
In defiance of the weather gods, Jimmie would often shovel snow while wearing shorts. He would also grill on the deck during snowstorms. In shorts. I don’t know if the neighbors thought he was crazy or not. If they did they never said so, though personally I was starting to get a little worried. But the shorts didn’t quite do the whole trick and this storm was the last straw. He started talking more seriously than ever about moving. And I started really listening.
While my husband's main concern seemed to be how high the mercury went—or didn't go—for me there were a lot of other factors to consider. I had lived my entire life in the same town. By now our daughters were seven and almost four years old, and already in school. Plus I had a lot of friends and my whole family nearby. I have nineteen first cousins, most of them in New Jersey, and too many second cousins to count.
And I knew my way around. I knew where to get the best pizza and the good bagels. I had routines. I had roots. I thought, how can I take my children away from their grandparents and friends? How can I leave a place where I run into someone I know wherever I go, and start all over where I don’t know ANYBODY?
But Jimmie kept sulking, I kept thinking, and we made our move a year later, in 1997. My husband drove himself across the country in late May, six weeks before the kids and I did. This is not something I recommend. Unless you're the one going first. Then it's probably a great idea. But the thought was that he would look for a place to live and a job, while I stayed behind to pack up and sell the house.
I ought to mention here that in coaching subsequent transplants, I always tell them there are four conditions which ideally should exist when moving:
1) Have a job in your new location
2) Sell your home in your old location
3) Know someone who can help you adjust to your new location
4) If you have kids, make the move before they are in school or once they are grown.
But it did not exactly work out that way for us. By the time I stormed out of Newark Airport on Bastille Day, or July 14 for those of you rusty on your French history, we had all four strikes against us.
But Jimmie didn't care. He loved Arizona from day one—everything from the people to the sunshine to the golf courses to the fresh-squeezed orange juice. He'd always felt he was a west coast soul born in an east coast body anyway. And now he finally had a matching set. The fact that he had no job yet and we were sinking into debt were minor details that did not worry him. Which made sense since I was doing enough worrying for two. Or two-hundred. I was wasting away, too stressed to eat.
Fortunately before I disappeared entirely, things turned around. My crazy optimist of a husband turned out to be right. We both eventually got jobs and sold our house and bought one here. Everything worked out.
And the rest, as they say (again, they meaning me), is history.
Coming in future columns: readers' transplant stories
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