Finding Home

What seemed to all of us to be a move without end has finally come to rest.  We've moved into a new house, on a new coast, and we are starting to feel settled.  Three years ago, we had just landed in Australia - and what an ocean of time ago that feels like now.  It has been a long journey and we're not done yet - we're feeling blessed to be starting a new chapter together.  Honestly, I also feel a bit weary.  It has been an extended and exhausting push to arrive here.  We will all just keep moving forward together...and try and enjoy the views along the way.
We arrived nearly six-weeks ago and I will be starting back at Main State soon.  I must admit to a degree of astonishment at having finally be here - like it is the New World and I've been navigating with a map full of sea monsters and jagged rocks hidden beneath the waves.  Is this place real?  Is this ground solid?  Yes, it is.
I've found new setting to get my care - The Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore which is about the distance from Santa Rosa to the City.  I feel a bit like I'm starting from scratch.   Hopkins is a great place to receive treatment but I feel slightly exasperated to be starting again in a new medical system with all of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of an unknown bureaucracy.  For example, I didn't understand that the woman doing my intake was also taking my vitals - she burst out laughing when I immediately pushed my chair to a reasonable personal space for conversation.  It is always surprising the little moments that can transform you from an individual to a cog in a machine that you can't quite make out the boundaries of.  Welcome to nouveau Cancerland!   You don't have to learn a new language but it is a different dialect.
Honestly, I continue to feel great.  I've started but next to last chemo cycle (I feel like I've said that before) and I literally seem to feel better every week.
Walter is seems to be taking the whole thing in stride and when I need a little inspiration, I don't need to look any further than him.
It is all a big adventure that he navigates with joy, imagination, and optimism.

Best birthday present ever - 16 beautiful Gravenstein apples.
Thanks mom!