Feeling like hell! How's Christmas?

The rest of the family went to Christmas Eve services in Lubbock, and I stayed at my in-laws' house trying to pull myself out of the weird winter depression that's been amplified by being parentless for the first holiday season.

The internet is confusing. I love all the open talk about mental health, but I'm also not convinced that meme-watching and blog-reading is entirely helpful when you're not in a mental place to navigate the evidence-based from the Instagram-influencer-based.

Instead of reading articles or memes about Holidays Without Family, I got lost down my mom's Ancestry.com account on Christmas Eve. It was a weird and very-obvious search for connection. I love history though, and clicking around seeing my grandfather's and this brothers' World War 2 draft cards was wild. I love seeing the old addresses and wondering just exactly what the circumstances were when all of the Jews in Louisville were pushed to the West End and then why they suddenly moved to the Highlands in the 1940s. Maybe it's my obsession with storytelling, but I like trying to connect the dots and imagine what caused what and what life must have been like back when no one would hire a Jew in Kentucky, so every one of my relatives had to start their own businesses.

world war 2 draft card

Random fun facts (typically, other people's family trees are boring as can be, but I've tried to pull out some universally interesting ones):

• My mother was Jewish and my father was Catholic. They weren't related at all, which perhaps will boost my gene-health, but I'm not crossing my fingers.
• My great-grandfather died of Tuberculosis! He was also a professional Roman Ring artist, but he was a tailor at his death.
• My great-great-grandmother was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which is where that DuPont plant and all of Dark Waters, that film that Graham is in, is about. 
• My great-great-great-grandparents came from Counties Limerick and Mayo in Ireland.
• My great-great-grandmother was a HENNESSY. And the name "Angus" is the gaelic word for Hennessy. So it's a family name after all, haters!
• I was named after a few Brigids on the Irish side of the family.
• My mom's family came over from Poland and Russia in the 1870s. 

me and my family on a worldschooling adventure

Hello, new readers! I'm guessing you arrived via the essay that Salon.com published. If you're a regular reader (Thank you!), click over to Salon to read something new.

I'd been trying to figure out a way to tell the story of my dad and duPont and Dark Waters and death, but it is a story that felt bigger than this blog. I am grateful to Salon's Editor-in-Chief for believing in me, which sounds totally cheesy, but which I mean so sincerely.

So if you're new here, let me quickly tell you a little bit about me and this blog.

• I've made my living as a musician & private music teacher for 20 years. Piano was my first instrument, but I am known for playing accordion and the musical saw. 
• I have seven albums on Spotify and many more unrecorded. 
• I play guitar in an instrumental bluegrass band. 
• I sing in an Andrews Sisters Tribute act. 
• I've toured as a sideman in heavy rock bands and light folk bands. Occasionally I pay the saw with Elvis Costello.  (He's wonderful.)
• My first blog entry in 2006 was just a quick update about Nashville Star, a TV show that drafted me to be the 'quirky contestant.' I didn't make the finals, but an 18-year-old named Kacey Musgraves was next to me during much of the process. 
• I fell in love with a Texan. 
• We moved to Scotland for two years and had a baby there -- that would be Graham, my little movie star. He's got a three-year-old brother named Angus. 
• Shortly after Angus was born, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 
• The day of her first chemo, I was offered a big role in ONCE the Musical, the international touring production. I turned it down. Because family. I don't regret it because what's the point
• Three years ago I had an infant on the breast and a mother in chemo. 
• Last summer my mom went into hospice care the same week my dad was diagnosed with stage four sinus cancer.

More fun facts:

• I'm a mental case about 30% of the time. 
• My husband is a saint.
• My kids are incredible.
• My mother was Jewish and my dad was Catholic and I grew up both nothing and both.
• I want to get them into therapy as soon as possible.
• I was once a network television producer, back in my late teens, early twenties.
• I had a home-birth, on purpose.
• As of last month, I drive an electric car. We were car-free since 2011 (odd in Kentucky), but we bought an EV last month when Graham started booking actor jobs that required a car. 
• I overthink everything.
• I'm an introvert, but I love the stage.
• I love whisky, but I hate being drunk. I sip the good stuff and not very often. But I looooooove a peaty single malt.
• I use this blog to sometimes write poignant pieces and other times to share a trade secret or a family recipe.
• I tour festivals and folk clubs in Europe at least once a year, though for 2020 I have nothing on the books. Graham keeps booking acting work, and I want to find a new way to create my own art (maybe finally write that book rather than constantly booking tours?!) while supporting my kids in all they want to do.

• Independent artists once made a living by touring + selling CDs. That’s not viable anymore.
• Art/music/writing has VALUE to society.
• PATREON is a website that allows you directly support artists; i.e. become a PATRON, you know like in the Renaissance! 
• Join Patreon and choose your level of support. Maybe it’s $1/month. Maybe it's $5/month. Maybe it’s $100/month. 
• Once you’re a member you unlock access to content I've posted on my Patreon page.
• You’ll have EARLY/EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to things over there. I’ve already posted a new song that I wrote on the set of Dark Waters. Only my 23 Patrons can hear it. 
• I’ll create new content as the community grows, changing it up when I tour or have a new album, or when I realize what kinds of content you all are enjoying. 
• On Patreon, the best kind of art is created with community support. Can you please help me grow this community? $1/month? $5/month (that’s like buying me one coffee!)
• Feel great about yourself because by supporting the arts, you have bettered the world.
• Especially if you've been reading my blog for 15 years and now think maybe a $1/month might be do-able :) 
• LOVE.

i know, i know, i have too many tabs open. #screenshot

Morning, y'all! Who else has been up since 4? I know you're out there. I'm ready for a nap, but I'm also about to head to a meeting. Babysitter is in place, and I'm off to work.

The life of an independent musician is funny. Used to be I could sell thousands of CDs out of my trunk. Or from stage. Or from a brick and mortar record shop. That would pay for the production AND my health insurance. It was pretty great. I played live shows too. The template for earning income as an artist has changed, and I'm trying to roll with it without complaint because, well, I, too, enjoy Spotify. Even if I only make about $30 a year

Me, working with crazy unkempt hair in a coffeeshop while I pay a babysitter so I can write and email and book tours and entertain my micro-fans - i.e. YOU!

I'm feeling quite heavily these days that my time is diminishing. I'm not suicidal, and I'm not sick, but I recognize that my genes are not great. I'm grateful for every blonde hair that pops up in my formerly bright-red. I'm thankful for the liver spots my dermatologist points out and the wrinkles that my kids ask about. The signs of aging are so exciting to me because every little change means I've made it another year. It's also given me an exciting/stressful PUSH to get all the endeavours I've stored in my brain out into the world.

There's the memoir I haven't written -- the one where I tell you crazy stories about abusive exes and ridiculous tours with famous bands and rides home in United Nations motorcades and that time when I had bagels with Walter Cronkite and that other time when Bill Cosby

Maybe you've been following this blog for years (since 2006, omg?!?!!), but guess what ... my 7-year-old son has officially surpassed me in fame and I LOVE IT SO MUCH! I will never stop making art and writing and singing and playing, but right now my son is part of telling maybe the most important message of the millennium.

I'm terrified of the impending holidays. My dad's 75th birthday is in a few weeks. Hanukkah is in a few weeks. Christmas is in a few weeks. They are all the same week, and I will not be home for any of them.** I will be with my boys and my in-laws and they are all kind and thoughtful and beautiful people, but I am afraid of how I will just want to retreat to my room because I will not be good company.

I'm also afraid that if for some reason the grief ball doesn't hit its target (have you seen that analogy)  then I will just look like an unfeeling freak. Grief is weird, y'all. It's especially weird to go from two-parent holiday season to zero-parent holiday season within a year.

You know what makes me feel better? Comfort food. It's called that for a reason. Brigid's 90-Proof Kitchen here for the rescue!

Since I'm on a recipe kick, I'm gonna share my favorite awesome sugar-cookie recipe. I've had a sugar-cookie craving (but am on a doctor-ordered gluten-free trial for a few weeks for my arthritis: LAME), so rather than baking them I will just write about them. I like this one because it tastes amazing, but also because you only have to chill the dough for an hour, so you don't have to plan in advance to make them:

2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp bourbon
2 tsp baking powder
5 cups flour
1 tsp salt 

Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and bourbon. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt. Cover and chill for an hour.
Preheat oven to 400*. Roll out dough (I like to make it thick, like 1/2"!) and cut into fun shapes. Add sprinkles if you want. Bake for 6 minutes (They'll look undercooked, but when they cool, they'll be soft not crispy.) Cool and decorate even more!

Go ahead and print this out because someone will ask you for the recipe, I promise!

Also, here are some badass Hanukkah cookie cutters that I love*:


**Robbers: all travel bloggers hire multiple house-sitters, so don't even think about trying to break into steal all those shitty old Derby glasses my mom left behind. I'll actually just leave them on the porch for you if you can take them to Goodwill for me, 'mkay thanks)

Also, it's Giving Tuesday. Give to an artist who makes you smile or to an organization that does magical things or share a post on the internets if you don't have the actual dollars to help!

David, digging into the MAC N CHEESE!

Thanksgiving was pretty difficult this year, particularly because, while Graham located my dad's special mac-n-cheese recipe on his left-behind iPad, the mac-n-cheese I cooked did not deliver. I assumed his secret ingredient was extra butter, but I think it's extra-sharp cheddar and extra salt. In the mean time, I'm waaaaaaay too cheesy-noodled out to even think about a do-over, so I'll wait until next Thanksgiving.

I had some pretty overwhelming moments of grief, some heaving sobs, and some sweet hugs and kisses from my little guys who have seen too much.

Thought I'd share my dad's mac-n-cheese recipe today, since SO many of you have asked for it:

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
1 tsp salt (pretty sure he used a lot more than this)
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar (i think he included extra-sharp!)
2 cups (7 oz) elbow macaroni, cooked, drained 

Make a sauce with butter, flour, milk, salt. Stir in 1-1/2 cups cheese until melted. Layer the cheese sauce with the cooked macaroni in a 1-1/2 quart casserole. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on the top. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Serves 6-8, or one Brigid.

Pretty pretty tablescaping by 7-year-old Eleanor.

- Graham's movie comes out in theatres across America on Friday December 6! 

I've been playing the piano! I used to play hours a day. Looking back I recognize that I was an above-average child pianist. I could play Mozart upside down with crossed arms when I was 8. (I'm too old to be a prodigy now, but I can still play Mozart upside down.) I also have realized just how much the don't-say-nice-things-about-yourself mentality has affected my life and career, and, while I recognize that bragging isn't cool, I also see that it's okay to, like, not hide your skills from the world just because middle schoolers are terribly mean. And because boys-in-bands can be big jerks.

With children came less time for me, and with dying parents came even less. I have played loads of music, but only professionally and typically only on the gigs -- gotta pay the bills. Practice, even just at-home playing (playing is different from practicing), has suffered tremendously.

Sometimes it's hard to practice piano.

I'm being good to myself and not feeling guilty if I only play one page of Mozart at day. Three minutes of practice is better than zero minutes. I'm also forgiving during my travels when I'm not able to find an instrument.

I started a 100 Days of Practice Challenge on my Instagram 54 days ago. I have missed at least 10-20 days, and my progress on Mozart Sonata 2 is very weak, considering 10 years ago I could have sight-read the whole thing in a concert hall without issue. I can feel that my brain doesn't work the way it used to (which makes me partly just assume there is a tumor up there; isn't living with anxiety fun!!), but I can also feel my fingers loosening up. The cold affects my joints, so when my furnace broke 2 days ago my playing time suffered.

Anyway: anyone out there want to join me in a 100 Days of Practice Challenge? Be kind to yourself? Know that in 100 Days, you will have accomplished a feat? Anyone out there have epic graphic design skills and want to offer up some sort of printable for an adult 100 Days of Practice? Or maybe you, as an adult, can encourage your child who is taking music lessons to join you and you'll join them and everyone will have fun and grow as a person?

Again: 30 seconds of practice is better than nothing. It's the habit that is useful.

I'm going to start making more time for this, so that I can memorize the second Mozart sonata and perform it for anyone who cares to hear. Actually maybe I'll host a special live concert of country musicians performing classical pieces. Or maybe I'll just do a live-stream video that's only for my Patreon people!! (For y'all who like namedropping, I posted some backstage photos from the Elvis Costello concert and tour bus and stage and stuff, but you can only see them if you're a Patreon because I'm trying to figure out a new business plan and how to just chillax and make art in a world where albums no longer pays the bills! Can you believe i once bought two houses without family help just based on stated income of being a musician?!? Ahhhhh the turn of the century sure was fun.)

Random question for my sweet 7-year-old: will you just click on this website? I'm doing an algorithm experiment with his IMDb page.

Less than two weeks after my mom's funeral, and while recovering from his own cancer surgery, my dad bought tickets to John Prine's All the Best Fest. The festival was still 14 months away, and Dad had a Stage 4 diagnosis.

Me! Happy!! And off to a gig last night.

In 2009 I challenged myself to blog everyday. My page views soared to thousands per day, and many more people knew me as a blogger than a musician. I refused to pre-write and schedule, which was ultimately the source of my failure. I mean, sometimes you are just swamped ... and I didn't even have kids then.

I won't put such strict DAILY rules on my blog re-discovery, but I am already feeling energized to write more. That is 100% because of SIX Patreon patrons who have pledged in the past week. 

I only know two of them personally, and I'm not related to any of them. I've seen the page-view stats on my blog before, so I obviously know that people in Australia read it. But having full-on Patrons pledge a few dollars a month to ME is giving me such a sense of validation, renewal, and desire to CREATE. I had NO idea the effect it would have on me, and I wish I'd done it years ago when I first claimed a Patreon page. I've already shared some exclusive content with my six patrons (behind-the-scenes photos of me filming a cooking show with Chef Damaris Phillips!), and I can't wait to create more.

It's a lot more encouraging than the $1.85 I got from Spotify for last quarter.

Now: what comes next?? I'm terrified of winter. These are my first holidays without my parents. We will be doing a neighbor Thanksgiving, which I'm pretty excited about ... the community I'm working on creating over there is blossoming, thanks to several other neighbors who've experienced loss and fear recently.

I'm hoping this blog and new songs and new essays and new books and new photographs and such will be a mental health savior.

I'm working on editing a few photographs (I'll share them with my patrons first!) and then I'm going to write some great blogs on my travels for the past year. All travels have been for work or for funeral, but they have all been fulfulling in their own way. So look for photos from: Scotland, Switzerland, France, the Dominican Republic and Ohio. #oneofthesethingsisnotliketheother

JOY.
LOVE.
HUGS.
ART.

Thank you for the support -- you have no idea just how much it has inspired me.

FRIENDS! I'm here. I'm caffeinated. I'm having a midlife crisis.

A friend of mine whom I don't see very often gave me some great advice last weekend. His initials are E.C. and his name rhymes with pelvis poshdello. Despite being a massively famous rock star, he somehow takes time to talk and listen and, like, therapize me. I caught up with him this weekend, introduced him to Graham, and he shared some good advice. This man is incredibly smart, which pleases me to no end and also explains his thousand endeavours and brilliant art.

Anyway, enough namedropping.

The weekend was good enough to make me want to hit reset and meet this midlife crisis full-on, eyes-on-the-road, full-focus, intentional life, etc.

I'm sort of wrestling with the whole I'm 41 with terrible genes, and there's not time to do all the things I want to do. I've got a TON of songs left in me, several romance novels, maybe one literary novel, and thousands of blogs. I also have a family to feed and support and love and snuggle and electricity bills to play, so my self-employment requires a re-boot.

I'm going to buckle down and focus on the Patreon template of art and hope that enough people out there find my music/blogs/photography/videos compelling enough to pledge $1 a month (or $5 a month?) which is basically like buying me two lattes a year.

My first album came out almost 15 years ago. I sold almost 4000 copies from stage and record stores. That income stream is just no longer available because of Spotify, etc, and that is okay with me. I acutally LOVE technology, and I LOVE the accessibility of music to all. I mean, how many kids now know about the Federalist Papers because Hamilton was readily available to the world? It's great. Music on demand is INCREDIBLE. Technology is AMAZING. I'm here for it.

I challenge anyone who has the means -- or anyone who used to, like, buy CDs on occasion, even if that was from Columbia House paste-a-penny-to-the-advert-and-mail-it-in -- to choose a few musicians on Patreon and pledge $1/month to them. Feel good about it. You are directly supporting ART.

To my own Patrons on PATREON, I'm going to be putting out some special info about various things that I'm not putting in my own blog (i mean, i have to have some incentive, right? even if it's just juicy gossip?!). And THANK YOU to the two wonderful people who jumped right on to offer support. It made me all weepy, like, legit tears and stuff, to know that there are two people out there who believe in supporting artists. It also makes me realize that if I have some sort of steady income, then I can finish these novels and these songs and also pay bills while I try to make the world a better place.

I unapologetically take food photos while I'm traveling. I also unapologetically have an iPhone and Alexas in several rooms of my house. I love being able to walk inside and announce to my thermostat to make it warm, and I love being able to look back through my iCloud for a geotagged photo to remember JUST what that pizza place was called in Florence where our Couchsurfing host Antonio took us for a late-night bite after we watched that amazing trio, The Three Harmonicas, with that delightful American fiddler we'd met on the streets. Don't talk to me about privacy. I'm smart. I know the risks. I just don't care about that anymore because my parents died this year, and I don't care about anything. The GeoTag function is AMAZING for recalling restaurants and villages.

My food photos remind me of the amazing adventures I've had, whether it was that miso restaurant where I had breakfast on the top of Mount Fuji after watching the sun rise from above the clouds or that Earl Grey gelato I had at some back alley shop in Italy.

Today, I'm bringing you photos of some of my favorite treats from around the world. Unfortunately the Japan trip was pre-iPhone, so it may as well never have happened.

Spam me with your food photos!!

Chocolate waffle: Amsterdam

Curry chips: Glasgow, Scotland

Full Scottish Breakfast: Isle of Skye

Spiced cider: Christmas market in Stockholm

Italian restaurant: Gamla Stan, Sweden

World's best pizza: Campo del Fiori, Rome, Italy

Also the world's best pizza: GustoPizza, Florence, Italy

Anyone out there doing NaNoWriMo?? I'm not officially because I know better than to limit my writing to November. I tried to do it in 2011, failed because I was overcome with pregnancy depression, and then I guess I just thought I couldn't do it anymore. Now I know that November 30 is not a hard deadline, and I'm gonna schedule in writing time.

I've also decided not to try to overachieve and attempt a brilliant, literary novel. I've decided that since I'm obsessed with reading light, mindless novels, then I need to write some like that instead. Also, since I unintentionally read all of that erotica trilogy a few weeks ago, then maybe I should try my hand at writing dirty romance novels. Because my parents are dead, so what have I to be embarrassed about?

(Hi, kids!! Love you! Don't be embarrassed by your mother! Maybe I'll publish a series of erotica books and you'll be able pay for college.)

Scheduling, in general, is helping me have a little bit of control over a life that I'm quite certain (finally) is completely out of my hands. It's nice to have a coffee date or a novel-writing-hour on my calendar, between gigs and emails and recording sessions.

I'm truly hoping to be productive this winter rather than just re-reading Wuthering Heights in yet another fit of seasonal depression.

So tell me ... are you writing? WHAT are you writing? Are you making other art? Tell me about it!

Oh yeah, I just deposited a whopping $1.85 from Spotify, so I'm not going to be afraid to post a do you enjoy my writing and would you perhaps feel happier today if you gave some actual, obvious, dollar-signed support to an artist link to my ko-fi.com/brigidkaelin page. I've had a Patreon in draft (edited to add: omg i just hit publish so now it's not in draft anymore!!!) for years (literally YEARS) so tell me if you're super hip to the Patreon and perhaps that will nudge me to finally get my admin crap together and plan an entire Patreon mission. It's just so much admin when all I really want to do is provide delightful art, in the form of blogs and songs and live shows and PDFs of my music and #100daysofMozart (have you been following that on my Instagram??) and such. Turns out that a lot of you didn't know that I actually play the piano REALLY FREAKING WELL. #fooledya

LOVE YOU ALL.

Welcome to my midlife crisis! It's probably more like a three-quarter life crisis, given the genes in my family, but 'midlife' rolls off the tongue more easily. Yesterday afternoon I played a piano cocktail hour and decided that I would end the job with a bunch of green chili wontons, go home, play with children, and start doing all kinds of fun midlife crisis things in the morning. There were no green chili wontons at the event, alas, so I ate crackers and a gin & tonic.

My 3-year-old took this photo.

This morning, I awoke at 6am because children. We all went downstairs, and I immediately decided to be self-indulgent and also kind. We all had waffles for breakfast -- frozen, processed, Trader Joe's waffles. We all read books. The boys read books to each other. I walked Graham to the bus stop and made him wear this ridiculous Budweiser umbrella hat from the 1970s because I couldn't find the box that held actual umbrellas. I got some work done. I had a meeting.

I went to yoga -- that was the big thing ... I'm committed to going back to yoga, mostly because I need something to manage my anxiety and irritability. After going through a couple of sun salutations, I decided that I actually wanted to just lie in savasana the entire class. Being that it's my midlife crisis, I did just that. I was in the back row, so every time the rest of the class did down-dog, they surely noticed me still lying on my back, but whatever. I paid a lot of money to lie down on that mat, and it was really nice.

My midlife crisis is going to be some sort of balance between doing all the things I want to do before I die AND not destroying the environment in the process (because guilt about the planet has followed me ever since my enviro-conscientious 8th grade science teacher told us not to flush if it's just pee).

So ... what are the kinds of things people do during midlife crises?? Do they join a gym? (yoga -- CHECK) Take a ridiculous vacation? (in-the-works!!) Buy a car? (MAYBE?!). Totally change careers? (COULD BE!) Stay tuned and check back what antics I'm up for.

Thanks for all the love on my last blog. I haven't slipped out quietly (nor done the hair-flip departure), but I'm having trouble settling. Sitting still lets the grief pour in, and quitting breastfeeding is messing with my mental stability, and generally, there's a lot going on. Adulting seems to be getting used to the fact that things will never settle down.

You know how it goes ... we constantly tell ourselves, "Once ______ is over, things will calm down." It turns out there is always something around the corner. I am just trying my hardest to not stress out over what that something will be.

For now we are settling into our new, old house. It has great bones, and I think it is the best lot in the entire city of Louisville (not joking; location is everything to me). The interior, however, needs around $200k worth of work to bring it up to a standard of living that most people would like. I, however, am ok with holes in the walls, I guess.

Our next priority is building an actual kitchen. I'm even going to have a DISHWASHER, folks!! There's one wall that needs to come down, and David, in an attempt to give my emotions an outlet, has told me where he keeps the sledgehammer. I started with a tiny metal hitting device, but I'm feeling the sledgehammer soon...

People keep telling me how awesome it is that I've got my parents' house. Gratitude that I own this amazing house, but... it's a project:) How do you like this kitchen?

I am surrounded by the ghosts of my family, but am raising my children in a place without family. It's a little exciting as it offers freedom to move anywhere in the world, but it's also hard: there's no one I can call at 2am. We are doing our best to establish a family-like neighborhood in the surrounding blocks, and truthfully it is a community like no other.

Last family photo. 2018.

It's weird, as I spent the last many years either raising a newborn or caring for a dying parent (or both -- not recommended). One of the things my mother apologized for on her deathbed was for not helping out as much as I needed when Graham was an infant. In his infancy, my mother and I had our biggest arguments: me begging for help, telling her how hopelessly depressed I was, and her telling me to "get over it" and that "life is hard," and me shouting back that "I'm 34, not 16, and you sh
ould be a grandmother and help me and hold this baby," and her saying essentially "you got yourself into this mess." Tears and shouts and arguments and eventual apologies (from both of us -- from me expecting the help, and her just not really being a baby person, which I totally get. She did a 180 when Angus was born and was the only person he'd go to sleep easily for.)

Anyway, we'd finally come to a sweet little grandmother-hangs-out-with-grandchildren beautiful arrangement when she got her stage 4 pancreatic diagnosis. Shit luck, eh?

Now I'm torn between throwing myself fiercely into the neighborhood by hosting sleepovers and potlucks and outdoor movie nights and serving on committees at Lakeside ... and the opposite: extracting myself completely. We could homeschool. We could travel and worldschool. We could liquidate and buy a forest in Scotland. We could buy an RV and start a new blog about traveling families. We could move to LA, like Graham is begging to do, and let him just audition all day long. We could move to the woods, and I could write romance novels.

But the community where we live, while only half a mile away, has so much more of a commune feel already that I don't really want to leave. There are so many kids, and they are all brilliant and kind. Last week a 5-year-old I didn't know knocked on the door (alone!) and asked of my boys could play. It made me smile so much and reminded me that this street is a really fun place to grow up. So maybe we'll stay?