Pauline Nevins

Everyone’s leaving. Well, not everyone. I exaggerate when I’m sad.

First off was Jeane, our neighbor for more than 15 years. Jeane hosted a meet-up for neighbors shortly after we moved to the foothills from Elk Grove. The event included a music recital held in her dance studio. In the following years, we attended performances by an array of talented artists – recitals on the baby grand, singers, violinists. It was wonderful.

It surprised me when Jeane announced she was moving out of state. She’s 80 years old and lived in the same house since the 1970s.

Aren’t elders supposed to be afraid of change? Dragged out of their homes kicking and screaming? But I should have known better. Over the years, Jeane shared snippets of her life during our dinners together. I learned more when I volunteered to draft her autobiography.

Once a week, I clicked open a rickety wooden gate and crossed the canal that led to Jeane’s back door, careful to dodge the Canada geese droppings. She and I sipped aromatic teas, surrounded by artistic mementos from her world travels. I took notes on a steno pad, enthralled with her tales.

After a year, I handed her a rough draft, admitting someone more experienced should weave the transcription into a professional product. The result is her autobiography, Short Stories and Small Miracles. The book’s description captures the variety and breadth of her life, “From New York to the Hollywood stage, from rituals with Native American elders … to Rudolf Steiner’s work in Dornach, Switzerland … to meeting the Dalai Lama …” Our friend was ready for yet another adventure.

Not long after Jeane’s departure, other friends announced they were moving to Florida. What? Hadn’t Ron and Sue heard the humor columnist Dave Barry admit Florida was weird? That it was a statistical fact that with 6 percent of the nation’s population, the state produces 57 percent of the nation’s weirdness?

We’ve known these neighbors as long as we’ve known Jeane. Sue coaxed me into joining the Friends of the Colfax Library before I’d finished unpacking. She and I got to know each other well during our 10 years on the library board. I was curious why she had difficulty walking and needed a cane but thought it impolite to ask. Sue volunteered the information. She was in a car accident in her early teens. Her mother lost control of the car after turning sharply onto a loose gravel road.

The crash threw Sue through the windshield. Miraculously, there were no fatalities, but she suffered injuries that required multiple hip surgeries over the years and the use of crutches for decades.

These struggles didn’t impair Sue’s ability to raise a daughter, work for blue chip companies in the San Francisco area and volunteer in her adopted foothill community. It will reduce the weirdness factor in Florida when Sue and her husband, Ron, show up.

Two more defectors, I mean friends, are members of one of my writer’s groups. Bill and Barbara moved to Idaho. Married for decades – second marriage for both, with a combined total of 10 children – these two rarely pass each other without a touch or a smile.

Shortly after their move, Barbara and Bill contracted COVID. Fortunately, both recovered. They love Idaho, they told me during a Zoom meeting in May. Neighbors are friendly. Customer service is exceptional, and lines are short. They even enjoyed this year’s snow that was deeper than their Grass Valley winters. More recent news from Idaho, though, isn’t as cheery.

Since all these friends are around the same age, I’m guessing they didn’t wait for someone else to decide where their next move should be.

Two years ago, I thought about returning to England. I imagined buying a thatched cottage in a village outside my hometown. Inside the garden gate, there’d be a plethora of roses, foxgloves and tall hollyhocks. It took just one British movie showing characters bent double against a biting wind and sheets of rain to snap me out of that fantasy.

Maybe Canada would work? It’s cold but not as wet. I dropped that idea when a late-night comedian reminded like-minded viewers that perhaps Canada didn’t want us.

I’ve pulled myself together. And I often tell people that when I leave my comfortable foothill home, it will be feet first. And when I think about that last move, I’m comforted by the words of British comedian Ricky Gervais, who said, “Being dead is like being stupid. It’s only painful for others.”