Heading to the Big Apple
Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund
While most of the public school kids I knew practiced for music performances to showcase at the end of every semester, my school performed for every Wednesday afternoon Mass.
We practiced every Monday and Wednesday morning. If there were a funeral or special celebration, we always found more time to make sure that our singing was more than a show. It was our offering.
Our teacher was a tiny woman with big, curly blonde Michael Bolton hair and dark, pointy eyebrows that could dance into any shape. She trained them to speak for her so that she could keep singing and directing while letting you know that you needed to change your posture or be quiet by merely arching or furrowing her brow.
During the Children’s Mass, sometimes we accompanied songs with hand motions and minor dances. If anyone has ever seen Napoleon Dynamite, the talent show scene probably wasn’t far off. From the chancel, the eighth graders held signs full of words and pictograms reminding us of the words not found in the misalette.
One of the liveliest songs I remember was a free-spirited number about blooming where you’re planted. I’m sure someone twirled with some silk flowers.
I’d all but forgotten that song until I saw the phrase on a DIY screen print in someone’s bathroom when I was washing my hands two weeks ago.
It was such a silly song, but I had no idea that it is solid advice, especially for where I am right now.
When someone asks me my zip code, I am guessing at this point. I’ve moved more in a short period than my brother who is in the U.S. Army. Since I left Ohio in 2010, I’ve lived in six different homes, five cities, and two states.
Fewer than three months ago, I unpacked a U-Haul in Springfield, Missouri, after a year in Maryville, because my husband’s job moved him to Missouri State University.
Saturday, I returned from searching for apartments in New York City.
I’m scared and I’m tired of moving. I don’t know where I’ll work, or how my child will adjust to city life. Yet I know she’ll be fine, and I’m the one who will have to adjust my expectations.
All this moving has taught me that I’ve been looking to get comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to create and maintain relationships. Uprooting so frequently is exhausting. Menial tasks like finding doctors, setting up and shutting off utilities, packing and unpacking, and establishing routines takes so much time. Job hunting, now coupled with daycare searching, causes me so much stress that it makes sense why I am almost immobilized by fear that it’s never going to stop. Sometimes I think I’ll be a nomad forever. I will always be tired and in and out of sickness or depression because of it.
If I keep that kind of attitude, I’m probably right. I will probably live the rest of my life thinking everything is one long struggle, blaming other people for missed opportunities, and pretending I don’t have time to make friends or to help people.
I admit that many days I don’t have an imagination big enough or a confidence strong enough to trust how it’s going to work. On the other hand, maybe this kind of challenge is exactly what I need.
On my way to catch my returning flight, the cab driver reminded me of the theatrical number we sang for Mass so long ago. As an immigrant from Nepal, he’s found it difficult to find work to feed his family. His wife wants to stay in the United States, so he’s taking classes in computer programming whenever he’s not driving people like me around. He’s trying everything he can to bloom where he’s planted, and I know I need to do the same.
