Sometimes a move is all you need to give you that feeling of starting over, you know the kind that's like scrubbing down a well-worn dry-erase board that had every inch covered with every plan and a few dreams that came and went along the way. Problem with those heavily used dry-erase boards is that you never can completely scrub them clean.
There's always a shadow of the ink that was there before, and no amount of solvent can seem to make that board all shiny and new. But maybe that's a good thing when it comes to life. I've moved around a lot all my life. I'm not a military brat, but grew up with a mom who gave me a deep sense of adventure and interest in travel and living in other countries and states.
So to me cardboard boxes always symbolized a new adventure and a chance to start over again at a new school, a new country, a new state or even a new neighborhood. My life's dry- erase board is worn and in the past it used to bother me that it remained ink-stained. Not so much anymore.
This week, with the help of some dear friends, I moved to a new hood, although it's really a return to a neighborhood I lived previously and loved—Menlo Park. There are a dozen places I could have moved, including a few in some downtown neighborhoods I equally love. But there's something about Menlo Park that has always made me feel like starting over felt really true and that with an open heart anything was possible. What is it with the Westside?
Cheers to cardboard and my new old neighborhood and all the good that comes with it—a Westside ease that I love so much and of course, raspados and tacos at Sonoran Delights. That's enough right there to kick start a new series of dreams on my life's dry-erase board.
— Mari Herreras, mherreras@tucsonweekly.com
