Watching Elf

“No (wo)man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and (s)he's not the same (wo)man.” — Heraclitus.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

“We haven’t watched Elf yet,” I told my daughter last Friday. “We need to do that tonight. Before you leave.”

“Oh, right. We do,” she said.

“We’ve watched that movie at least once a year for over 20 years. I’m not willing to break that streak. Not yet anyway,” I laughed as I told her. She and I had been sucked into watching a grisly crime drama during her stay and had yet to partake in our longest-running family Christmas tradition—watching Elf.

Maggie smiled. “We can’t break that streak,” she said.

We sat on the couch eating the chicken tacos I made for dinner and laughed our way through Elf for the 985^th time. At least. It was my daughter’s favorite movie as a child. She was 3 when it came out, the first year we watched it as a family. Elf is the only movie I have watched more than Under the Tuscan Sun, which says a lot. Besides all the times I have watched it the entire way through, I have also watched random bits and pieces more than that. We owned the DVD for years, and when my daughter was little, I would hear her laughing from the family room only to find her replaying the Elf burp scene over and over and over, laughing harder with each subsequent watching. Her obsession with the movie was not tied to Christmastime. She watched it any time of year. At one point, I had to ban Elf from the family movie night rotation until after Halloween because we would have viewed it every third Friday from July until December if I hadn’t. In retrospect, it seems a little harsh.

Even on its 985^th viewing, I laughed out loud at Will Farrell’s face when he got the news that Santa was coming to Gimble’s and giggled at James Caan playing the straight man while Buddy the Elf eats cotton balls at the pediatrician’s office. Genius. And, for the 985^th time, when Buddy saves Christmas at the end, I teared up because that’s how I roll. I admit it. Suspension of disbelief? What’s that?

Besides opening presents on December 25, watching Elf with my daughter was the only thing that was a through line in our Christmas this year. My tree was tiny and did not have the ornaments we look forward to putting on the tree every year. There were no stockings or decorations or lights. We celebrated in my Airbnb in Pittsburgh, the apartment above a UBreakIFix, a space unfamiliar to her and is home only for another 4 days for me. We navigated around each other in the tiny kitchen while I cooked dishes per her request, none of which was traditional Christmas fare. It was the most cooking I have done in one stretch this year, which reinforced how much I miss it.

It was quiet and unscheduled, and except for missing my son and his fiancé, who were visiting their new niece in London, it was a wonderful Christmas.

Her visit was too short. They always are. For those of you who have adult children living away from home, you know what I mean. Another two days would have been fantastic, allowing us to cook and walk and thrift more, yet I would still feel the same when I drove her to the airport and hugged her goodbye. It is never enough time. She has her fantastic, fledgling adult life to get back to. And as lovely as it is to cook for her and laugh at Elf together, she will never be that 8-year-old who wants to watch the burp scene over and over in the middle of July. I won’t be the mom who could lift Elf’s ban from movie night. We are not those people anymore.

I returned to Pittsburgh to see if I loved it as much as I did in July. (I do.) I planned a longer stay to have a place for my daughter to visit during Christmas and to allow myself enough time to look for a longer-term rental if I decided to stay. A few months ago, when asked where I thought I would “end up,” I thought Pittsburgh. I was almost certain. All those Google and ChatGPT searches I did in the spring were right. It has everything that I was looking for in a city. It seemed like the perfect couch for me.

It turns out the saying about not being able to step in the same river twice is true, even when the river is Pittsburgh. I am not the same person I was when I was here in July. The neighborhood is slightly different since I was here last—the dance studio where I took drum classes and an accidental belly dancing class has closed, as well as my favorite Thai place on Liberty Ave. Those changes in this neighborhood would not tip the scales away from living here. The yoga studio is as wonderful as I remember. The older, short man with a flexed and side-bent spine still walks up and down Liberty every day regardless of the weather. I feel safe, there is lots to do, it is home to Phipps Conservatory, I can walk for hours, the food is amazing, yet I have changed.

I leave Pittsburgh this Friday and drive to DC. It will be a short visit to celebrate my friend Monique’s birthday and to see my son Ian and his fiancé, Matt. Then, it is back to Detroit, where I have decided to live for at least a year. I am house-sitting through the end of February and will use that time to find a place to rent. Soon, I will be springing my furniture, boxes, and bins from storage and reacquainting myself with my lifetime of stuff. I look forward to collecting succulents and books again. I get to make soup in my favorite Le Creuset Dutch oven and fill my kitchen with spices. My first weekend in Detroit, I start a year-long 300-hour yoga teacher training program that I did not know was a possibility until mid-December. It helped me make the final decision and determine my timeline. The opportunity to house-sit fell into my lap after that decision was made. I am excited to hit the ground running and dig into my new city. It feels like the right next step. Things are falling into place.

I thought I had ruled out Detroit in May, before I left for Austin. It didn’t check the boxes the way other cities did. It didn’t show up in any of my Google or ChatGPT searches. It didn’t seem right. After living peripatetically, walking the Camino, and coming home to myself, I realized this task wasn’t as complicated as I was making it would be. And the stuff that I thought I was looking for? Well, that may not be what is important after all.

Since I left Michigan in April, I have spent more time alone than I have in my entire life combined. At times I hated it, yet I needed to be by myself to shed what was not me. I wanted to learn more about who I am without the roles that defined me for so long; I wanted to deepen my relationship with myself. To do that, I needed to be alone. I wanted to do things differently moving forward, change my neurological wiring, put down new pathways, and create new habits. It would have been too easy to slide back into the familiar way of doing things if I had been surrounded by stuff, places, and people that felt like a warm cozy blanket.

What became clear the first week I was here in Pittsburgh was that it was time for me to emerge from my sorta self-induced isolation. Being alone served its purpose, and I am grateful for the lengthy solo time. I have had enough. Visits with my kids and friends reinforced how important my relationships are. I find myself wanting more human interaction, wanting to cook for people, wanting to go out to coffee after yoga class with friends, wanting to go into an office, and wanting to see familiar faces when going to the store. I have none of that in Pittsburgh. And not even the coolest coffee shop or thrift store or best pancakes will make up for that. I need connection. I feel too alone in Pittsburgh.

So, Detroit it is. I have friends, family, personal and professional contacts, and it feels more like a warm landing than a cold plunge. I know I could make it work in Pittsburgh because I have done it before in strange cities. But I like the idea of picking up where I left off. I get to take my yoga training to the next level, I don’t have to get a new driver’s license, and I think Dan Campbell is cool.

I will return to Michigan exactly one year to the day after my life unexpectedly veered off the intended path, setting me in a new direction. (I love that unplanned, life-winking-at-me, full-circle, delicious detail.) At that time, when I felt utterly lost, my brother described it as my GPS needing to recalibrate. It was looking for a signal, and eventually, I would be rerouted and find my way. I feel like I have, for now. Only time will tell. And if nothing else, I know in what city I will be watching Elf next year. There is comfort in that.