restingmotion

Farewells Are Often Sad: Some Thoughts on Moving Week

I wrote a post with every intention of posting it Thursday morning, but then Thursday happened and nothing was posted.  Completely my fault.  When I look at the post now however, I want to save some of it, but it is out of step, and it feels weird to post it as is, so I am going to try something new, at least for me.  The end result may or may not make sense.  Anyway, what I am writing today is in italics, and the original post is not. 

 

Let's see what happens:

 

Goodbyes are always hard.  Even temporary ones, even when one is saying goodbye to a place not a person, even when I won't really be gone.  After all we will still see each other, but the relationship will be changed, a trial separation of sorts, a bit of surgery, and then we will be reunited. 

When I walked through the house yesterday, (Wednesday) after the movers had taken everything away, or at least had taken away everything that is going to storage, the house felt sad to me, like we were saying goodbye, and a part of the life of the place had already been stripped away.    

 

And that is how it felt to me on Wednesday, and even Thursday morning before the movers returned.  But late Thursday, after the house was mostly empty it did not feel so lonely at all, only paused, like a person holding their breath, as if waiting, waiting for the next stage to begin.  Without all the distractions of stuff, I also saw the way the house needs to flow, and feel renewed confidence that everything is on the right track.  I saw what I loved about the house and what needed improvement, and was able to see more clearly that the plan is good, for me and the house, for making it work without sacrificing too much of its character.  

The art was mostly packed the first day.  One person made crates for the larger pieces, while another boxed smaller items.  Tikka and I enjoyed watching the work from the upstairs windows, although I think Tikka was mostly watching for people walking by.    I had already pulled out a few smaller pieces, mostly sentimental in their appeal, to take to my temporary abode.  Today, I miss my art. I am sure I will feel more settled when the smaller pieces are unboxed and hung, but at the moment I still feel like something important is missing.  I feel at home in the apartment, even unpacked, but I walk into the house I AM home, even empty. It will be an interesting transition.

 

Yesterday was moving day, and today I have started the process of unpacking and putting away.  I've already been to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. I am certain there will be more of such excursions in my future.  I had charts and drawings, showing where everything would go, and in that sense the move went well because everything fit where it was supposed to fit, but there are always a few things that don't work out.  I intentionally brought most of my kitchen supplies to the apartment, not because I will need everything, but because we haven't yet finalized kitchen cabinetry and layout, and I am persnickety enough that I need to know exactly what goes where before I sign off on those plans, to check and double check, even as I accept that there will be missteps and failures. Plans on paper and reality rarely perfectly align.  I've already discovered miscalculations however.  I wasn't as thorough in sorting out what would go to storage as I should have been.  Mostly I am unpacking things I should have stored.  For example I forgot that a tall vaseline glass pitcher was stored with some tall pots, only because it was the only place it fit.  I forgot how quirky my storage system was in the old kitchen.  I wanted the pots, not the pitcher.  I'm sure I will eventually find things I should have brought with me that got stored instead.

 

Oh jeez, I just deleted an entire paragraph. (I partially rewrote the one above).  Basically I was sad on Wednesday night and wanted to binge on carbs and self-pity, but I managed to resist.   Today, Friday, I am back on track.  I also realizedthat I needed to take a walk today so I went for my once-standard 2 mile walk, except that I did it at mid-day rather than in the early morning.  I survived.  I had stopped walking during the 10 days I was moving little things, mostly because I was tired, but also because I was putting in 20,000 to 28,000 steps a day, roughly 10 to 14 miles, and felt I didn't need the extra steps.  This week, where I had felt relatively sluggish all week, I haven't logged less than 10k steps, but they have mostly been back and forth, moving and unpacking steps, not unkinking steps.  I needed that long stretch of the muscles, and I noted, after walking about 3/4 of a mile, that my back was seizing up, that my stride had become more like a martinet, and I was occasionally dragging my left foot.  I had to slow down, concentrate on tightening abs and lower back muscles, concentrate on rotating my hips properly, and eventually my back felt better, and I had less pain.  I did not have to cut the walk short; in fact, I felt much better afterward, even if a little overheated.  I know I have been overdoing it when I have to start concentrating on basic movements, but at least I have become aware enough to catch myself when I start to fall in bad patterns, and take corrective measures.  I suspect I will always have to do this occasionally.  It doesn't mean I must do less, but sometimes I need to go more slowly.

 

I miss my house already, although I know that is mostly because I am still trapped in this space "in-between".  I am not settled in the apartment, although i know that the settling-in can begin later today. (And has already begun) I know I will love the house when I return, and I look forward to both the process and the result, but the process hasn't started yet, and it looks like there is going to be a delay on the start date, which was scheduled for Monday, then delayed until August 20th. (I've just been told that it may be sooner, possibly even next week.  I am not holding my breath).  And perhaps this is what is sad, this period of indeterminancy.  The die has been cast, and I just have to go wherever the process leads me; even through sad days in empty houses and unsettled  apartments.

 

I am feeling better already, eager for the next stage, still sad to leave the house, but eager to see what develops, eager for our future return.  And yet I still feel trapped in some kind of nether-space, a doorway I haven't yet gotten out of.  And in many ways that is what transitional space is, a doorway.  We can choose to enter, or we can stay behind, but once we walk through, as much as we may have planned, we still don't know what is on the other side.  

One small calm space in my apartment, this tiny piece of counter next to the stove. This will probably not end up being the final layout.  To begin with, that particular pepper grinder belongs on the table, but the table piled high with paper right now (still, two days later).   This is my little oasis of calm, but also an oasis of potential.  Something can be cooked here and so there is hope and creativity — the promise of nourishment.  Yet the sense of calm is but an illusion, a necessary one if we are to maintain our sanity, but an illusion nonetheless.  The trick is to hold on when necessary, but also to be willing to let go.

 

 

Transitional Spaces, Meandering Thoughts

I am sitting in my empty apartment writing this post.  Why?  Because it is hot out and I am not ready to go back outside.  Also because my computer is here since AT&T came today to set up my internet service.  Why am I writing my blog post from a mostly empty apartment?  Because fiber. 

 

The apartment is not completely empty.  The laundry room is partially organized, which is good because the washer and dryer at the house have been disconnected and prepared for storage.  I've brought over most of the pantry.  There is an aerobed, a table, a few pots, coffee. There is a bookcase in the alcove that will become my office, and two stacks of Elfa wide single runner drawers filled with yarn.  Those came because everything is sorted and labeled and cataloged and I didn't want the movers to mix things up.  The wide frame that they belong in is not here yet because it will not fit in my car.

 

I am tired, and hot, but I am not as stiff and sore as I was.  The Elfa drawers were the last big things I brought that had be be carried in front of the body, and lugging them up the stairs, even one at a time (light but still awkward) was still difficult.  The simple truth is that I can't carry stuff like that.  Everything else can be tossed in a sack or a duffel and carried over my shoulders or on my back.  It is still tough going up the stairs, but my back is no longer sore.   I huff and puff too much, and am reminded that I miss that earlier Mardel, the one who was a bit of a gym rat, who walked and bike and did furious workouts. That isn't exactly right.  I miss the feeling of being capable and strong, but I don't miss being that girl, that girl who worried about what other people thought, that girl who could never believe she was somehow good enough.  Now I want to be strong again just so I can do the things I want to do, and enjoy doing them.  Now I know I can be strong.  I can carry heavy packs up the stairs on my back, but probably couldn't carry a platter of drinks across the room.  Now I can accept that I can dig the hole, that I can be tough with a pickaxe, but I can't lift the shrub that needs to go in the hole.   I can dig the rocks, uproot them, but I can't carry them away.  And you know what, that is all fine with me.  None of us are really meant to be solitary, to be completely self-sufficient. I can do what I have to do, and if I had to move that rock I could figure out a way.  Solitary gets in the way of solidarity.  My skills complement other's skills.  Together we turn things around.

But back to the move: I am writing at this little table, the same table I spray painted over the July Fourth holiday.  It looks a little lonely in this very empty, very beige apartment, but stuff will arrive and we, the table and I, will settle in. This is not a table for big dinner parties.  I could have brought my dining table.  But then there would have been no room for chairs.  Maybe one chair, with its back to the living room, but what fun is that?  I can't imagine anything more depressing than a big dining table with only one chair, no with hope of sharing a lovingly made repast, no hope of convivial dinnertime conversation.  Better a smaller table with potential.  Although if four people ate here they would have to be four people who didn't mind getting entangled with others, knees touching, feet intertwined.  All kinds of potential for trouble.  All kind of potential for togetherness.

 

I'll probably just have people over for drinks and nibbles.  And it does strike me as one of those funny little jokes that life plays on us that, now, moving out of my house which is good for entertaining, I suddenly am ready to entertain again.  For six months I needed to pull inward and not be particularly social.  It had nothing to do with the house and everything to do with me, me and my own propensity to root around in the undergrowth, stirring up the leaf-mold and things that are best left undisturbed.  Oh wait.  I wasn't the one that stirred the pot.  But there is a lot of pot stirring going on the world right now, and a lot of turds are floating to the top.  People I once thought of as wise and kind let their reactionary edges show, and burrow deeper. I realize they are often only trying to shut out the unpleasantness, but in reality they just create more cesspools, uprooting even bigger turds.  Not everyone mind you, many of us are still kind.  But I fear the cesspools will grow deeper and more and more sinkholes will be revealed. I fear more of us will fall in.  All the more reason to gather together, to keep each other afloat. Hence parties.

 

But I digress. The official move is next week.  First stuff for storage.  Then stuff for the apartment.  There are a few more things I have to get taken care of this weekend, just to make life easier for myself next week, but hopefully also to make the transition a little less stressful for Moises and Tikka.   Tikka will go back and forth with me, but I've decided that it may be best for Moises if we move to the apartment tomorrow, camp out a bit before the rest of our stuff arrives.  He will be upset regardless. But I am hoping he will be a little less upset than he would be at the house, with people moving his stuff around.

 

And I am thrilled with my small accomplishments:

The little things include my coat and wine closet.  There are no closets on the main floor of my house, and no hook, or place to hang a coat either.  That will be remedied when I return, but for now I am thrilled to have a convenient place to store coats, and a convenient place to store wine.  I've also hung shower curtains, and I am thrilled to have a bathroom that actually has towel bars and a place for toilet paper.  The previous owners of my house seem to have removed all the toilet paper holders and towel bars when they vacated the premises.  Admittedly I could have replaced them.  But I didn't want to spend money on towel bars when I was going to be redoing the bathrooms within a year anyway.  Count me cheap, at least about some things. The truth is, I am tired of my efficient, but tiny little bathroom with no place to hang a towel.   Perhaps buying a towel bar would have been cheaper than removing a wall and redoing everything, but well, I probably would have done that anyway.  I'm still a Texan after all, "go big or go home" runs in my veins, but I'm not all about bigness or space, just getting it right.  I'm either all in, or I'm all out.  No halfsies here.

 

 

Life Interrupted

I found myself back at the Knoxville Museum of Art the other day, once again spending time with the Jered Sprecher exhibit.  I adore this set of 8 paintings and the space they create, a multi-layered space where one can reflect on the passage of time, memory, technology, and how our lives seem to blend together seamlessly but are in truth made up of many random elements seemingly all kind of mashed together but actually layered and filtered by our experiences and our connections.

 

Or perhaps I am just more inclined to notice the liminal spaces of life right at the moment seing as my own life seems to be buffeted about by forces outside myself, even if those forces were set in motion by my own actions.  The truth is I did not anticipate how chaotic life would be with my house on the market, although I probably should have known better.  An oversight.  But then, I wonder how many new ventures we would undertake if we actually clearly anticipated the toll and turmoil involved in reaching our goal. 

My experience with the Hyde Park house was completely different -- even though we were living in the house, even though we were packing to move -- but the situation was different as well; the area had not yet recovered from the housing crash of 2008, and we had few showings.  I deliberately set the price of this house competitively, wanting to sell quickly, but was still surprised at the amount of interest.  I'm not complaining mind you, but I am still, at times barely maintaining my equilibrium. 

 

And yet, despite the disruption, despite the fact that very little is routine at the moment, despite the fact that my life is, in fact completely interrupted while at the same time going full tilt with several new projects in the works, I am finding that this time of exhaustion and chaos is also a time of great creativity. My mind is experiencing an explosion of creative expression, with ideas for garment sewing, for embroidery and fiber creations that border more on art than the kind of practical things I have been dabbling with in the recent past, and I have been writing and sketching and trying to capture fragments of imagination.  I didn't realize how much my space, the space that was our space, the space that was always meant for a specific thing, was not my space.  I didn't realize any of this until I was not only ready, but actually willing, to let go. The freedom of chains unbound is exhilarating, even if the chains were invisible, so invisible that I had perhaps grown complacent and forgotten they were there.

 

Nothing is going to happen quickly.  And yet everything is changing incredibly rapidly.  Roughly five weeks until I must be out of one house; roughly eight weeks until I am into another. Multiple and overlapping timelines.   Have you ever noticed how change seems to barge in like a March wind, stripping away our self-satisfied sense of comfort, piling disruption atop discomfort, and yet bringing with it new joys, new blossoms?  Do we fool ourselves that we want security and comfort, when that is really death? When you look at human history, our shared nature is change; our shared nature is the struggle between the desire for security and the need for change.  Do we push on or do we hunker down? When we finally chose to push through the barriers, be they our own internal biases or worldly constructs, we are following the path  nature itself has set for us; creating something new.

 

 paintings by Jered Sprecher.  All photos by me.