Too Soon To Tell

"Wife," says Husband. "I find I must needs travel to Scotland for two weeks in order to better our lives together."

"Hmmm," says I. I am kneading my dough like a proper house woman. Next I shall be pounding dirt out of frocks with stones in a courtyard fountain. "I suppose this venture will be filled only with sweat and hard work, and surely not many visits to whisky distilleries and breweries that craft beer with a 41 percent alcohol content."

"Surely not," says he, as he dons his dapper cap and ties the laces on his newly shined boots. "No more than it shall include visits to peerside doxies on the shores of the Thames, nor gluttony and revelry among all the goodly pubfoods and football fans merry olde England has to offer."

"It shall be well, then," says I. "You shall travel to the labyrinthine streets of London and the bonnie olde highlands of Scotland, leaving me here with the babes and the laundry and me own bookshoppe work and this cursed dough that requires constant kneading."

And that is, more or less, how it happened.

I told Noah to apply for a job in India, and then the next day he tells me Brew Dog in Scotland has invited him out for two weeks.

And would I move to Scotland, if we had the chance?

Absolutely.

And do I think we will be moving to Scotland?

Probably not.

A week ago Mr. V got the offer, and I spun like a planet knocked out of a treacherous orbit. Revolving madly on hope and possibility.

I have long time dreamed of being an ex-pat.

And if I want to live off 'maybe' like a drug, well, who can prove it does me harm?

Mr. V hates the maybe.

Me, I grow expansive. I am a daydreamer with ambition. An idealist who believes my own fantasies can become real.

I researched the United Kingdom's immigration laws.

Pictured life in a small town on the Scottish coast.

Started figuring out how to get Mr. V a UK work visa.

Checked out books by Iain Banks and Diana Gabaldon.

Hope and action go hand-in-hand for me.

And that, more than anything, gives me--

well. You know.


Now I am thinking that we probably won't be moving to Scotland. But--they only get two hours of daylight in January, did you know?

Yeah. F you, Scotland. You and your lochs and your whiskies and your land of eternal night.

We might have found a reason to settle here for a bit. And then again, we might not have. (Poor Mr.V)

I'll be a little sad if we don't move to Scotland. For a few days I may even mope.

And then, this little daydream believer will just keep bouncing around in the roulette machine that her life seems to have become, and wonder:

What next?

(That is, right after she fetches her poor Mr. V, who thrives on routine and order and predictability, a very large brandy).