And this is also Eagan
I've learned a lot since we moved a year ago. Above all else, I've learned that our suburb is very large.
If you were sitting in the car with me at various points in the last year, the thing you might hear me say the most is a string of expletives followed by “Are we not there yet? How is this still Eagan?”
You would have to listen hard because I try to mutter it under my breath, so the kids don’t hear me, because they are already getting a little too good at swearing.
You almost certainly would have heard it for the first time as I drove our oldest child to a gymnastics facility that I had scouted out to encourage her budding enthusiasm in the sport.
She joined not long after we moved here from Minneapolis, a major life change that I’ve written about before but which is front-brain again as we hit the one-year anniversary this weekend of moving into our house. That fact has been embedded in my head for weeks but also has been impossible to ignore as “happy home anniversary” messages rolled in from our realtors and mortgage lenders.
The first time I brought her to gymnastics was the first time I plugged directions into my phone, and that probably should have prepared me to not say as we were driving “(Expletive) (Expletive) (Expletive) Are we not there yet? How is this still Eagan” but alas it did not.
Seven miles away? With about four different ways to get there, but all of them taking roughly 15 minutes?
Granted, I wouldn’t have batted an eye at the distance or time if we were still living in Minneapolis because a lot of things we did there took longer and were even further away even if we never left the city proper (including the dreaded, no good way to get there slog across town from our Longfellow neighborhood to, say, the chain of lakes).
This was more a battle of my perception vs. reality, one I was reminded of just a few weeks ago when my dad visited us. We had been driving for a while, taking various twists and turns while running a few errands, and he asked sincerely, “So which city are we in now?”
Still Eagan, Dad.
It led me down a geographical dive, which helped explain at least some of what I was experiencing. Within Eagan’s borders there are roughly 33 square miles, while Minneapolis is a little less than twice as big at 59 square miles. But Eagan’s population of about 70,000 is approximately one-sixth of the Minneapolis population.
Eagan undoubtedly has a different density, a different pace and a different vibe than Minneapolis and St. Paul, places our family still goes all the time but also skylines we view far off in the distance from one of Eagan’s many (so many) hills.
Driving around from our spot in the southeast part of Eagan to various points contained within its limits has led to the formation of a shorthand phrase I have used to keep track of and make sense of my new surroundings.
And this is also Eagan.
I shop often at the Eagan Costco, the sort of thing it feels like our family should have been doing all these years but really just started up since we moved.
The previous owners of our house offered us several items of theirs before we moved in, and one of them was a large basement freezer — the sort of thing you never knew you really wanted until you have it (and, I’m guessing, never want to move).
We not only have more space now to stash 54-bag boxes of chips and 36 rolls of toilet paper but also a dizzying array of frozen goods.
My internal monologue as I walk through Costco feels like it is often being narrated by David Sedaris.
Good lord, that’s a lot of energy drinks.
What would I even do with five pounds of of pulled pork.
No thanks, I don’t want those pants.
I briefly (OK, it was months) became obsessed with frozen pad Thai meals because I bought a six pack the first time I shopped at Costco and then they were gone for about six months. My wife would roll her eyes as I optimistically checked for them every time thereafter, to no avail.
“They’re just gone,” she would say, until one day I emerged with a giant smile and TWO boxes, 12 meals in all.
We pile a lot of non-perishable items into our cart, a function of busy lives and three young snack gremlins at home (sure, and two older ones). I buy a rotisserie chicken on virtually every visit now, delighting in announcing to the family how many different ways I have used it that particular week.
Lunch when it’s fresh with an apple and chips. A leftover sandwich with spicy barbecue sauce. A breakfast hash. On top of that beloved pad Thai. Late night chicken nachos.
Sedaris is narrating again, and I think he would be pleased.
And this is also Eagan.
We essentially live across the street from Lebanon Hills Regional Park, though the street is more of a busy road and it does take a little doing to get across.
But having access to that park, its various lakes, its serene trails, its perfect reminders of the seasons changing … that has been one of my favorite parts of the last year.
I’ve probably gone for runs there at least a hundred times already, while walks with the entire family or just my wife (oh and yes with our pug in those cases) are plentiful as well.
We keep track of the egrets and herons, know to look for turtles on sunny days, listen for frogs in the marshes and spy on muskrats near the shore. It’s not far from the noise of traffic, but it gets quiet really quick.
One time, we saw a muskrat take off from one end of the lake and I swear we saw the same one when we got halfway around as it arrived on the other side. It was probably laughing at us for not taking its shortcut.
Our 5-year-old son, who just learned to ride his bike without training wheels, went around the lake with me recently in what felt like a considerable milestone.
When I’m on the paved trail around the lake nearest to our house, or high above it on the way home, I am often reminded of one of my favorite quotes from my favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn't nice, I don't know what is’.”
And this is also Eagan.
I probably went overboard in signing our kids up for things this spring and summer. All three kids have soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays. Two of them play at the same time (including the 5-year-old team I am helping coach), and none of them are at the same location.
Softball is Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I didn’t really check when the season ended when I asked the girls if they wanted to play (and they both eagerly said yes). Mid-July, as it turns out, which means in a couple weeks we are going to have some scheduling conflicts once swimming lessons and gymnastics start.
There is no shortage of meticulously organized things to sign up for, and I am a sucker for the logistical machinations of a well-oiled machine as well as giving our kids the chance to try as many things as possible.
I tried to give an easy out to our 11-year-old, who is in all of these activities, to tell her that it would be OK to drop something.
But she is just like me and always wants to do everything. So we will figure it out.
A rainy stretch a couple weeks back led to a string of cancellations, which felt like both a letdown and a desperately needed reprieve.
Lately, though — the last three nights, now that I think of it — we have seemingly made up for it with a new sort of pickup soccer game in our front yard.
It’s the three kids against me. Their goal is about eight feet wide, between two rocks by our front bushes, while my target is a narrow electrical box perpendicular to their goal.
The first night happened sort of by accident, after a tough softball practice for our 8-year-old gave way to a better night at home, and every subsequent night they’ve insisted that we play (even Friday, when we didn’t even start until about 9:30 — after the school carnival, then dinner, then ice cream).
It should be wearing me out, and it sort of is. But I know that their asking to play is a good thing, and I don’t mind running around and taking some obvious losses. We’ve even taught the 5-year-old that passing can be a good thing. Or at least that stealing the ball from a teammate is a bad thing.
He has my innate ability to always know the score, and he doesn’t like losing any more than I did at that age.
And this is also Eagan.
Our world is more spread out than it used to be, as I noted earlier, and that cuts both ways.
The space between things lends itself to a sense of calm, but the distance between things inevitably lends itself to car culture.
We drove most places when we lived in Minneapolis, too, but we could walk to get coffee, or a gallon of milk, or go out to dinner or even to a movie in our old neighborhood.
On a nice day a few weeks ago, my wife and I made the three-mile round trip walk to get coffee that I had been plotting on my phone. It was nice, and it felt good to know that we could do that (plus plenty of other things since there is a lot of retail in that same area), but most of the time when we walk here it’s with the intention of winding up right back where we started.
I find myself making fewer comparisons between where we used to live and where we live now, which I suppose is natural with the passage of time.
We’re ready for Year 2, now that we know some of what to expect. More than that, I’m sure there will be even more entries on the list 365 days from now.
And this is also Eagan.
My son pitches for the Eagan Bandits Town Ball team. They play at Goat Hill Park. It's actually pretty picturesque. Just without the usual food and be beverage available at a small town field.