It’s strange being back in Charlottesville, it now being nearly two weeks since I moved back from Blacksburg, completing my 16 months there. I’m so used to not being in Charlottesville that moving back not to downtown, but just outside of town, has resulted in my spending all of my time at home: chopping wood, playing with the dogs, meshing my possessions with Amber’s, and signing up for next semester’s classes. I haven’t been to town in two days. On Wednesday, I spent some time downtown, but as a student (until May), I don’t have the spending money to sit at Mudhouse or return to my habit of regular lunches at Bizou and Bashir’s. I haven’t fully reconnected with friends, as I think it would be a bit presumptuous to e-mail 200 people and announce that I’d moved back (provided they’d noticed).
I think if I’d moved right back downtown, it would be different. Charlottesville has retained its 16-month-old status as a place to which I go, not a place where I am.
Here is now Albemarle, rather than Blacksburg, and for that, at least, I am grateful.