the week of The Move: …and a truck

Packing, finally. Stacking cardboard boxes. People like me, who have collected cooking paraphernalia all their lives, have a tough time of it. There sure is a lot of stuff. All fragile. I feel like packing none of it.

Moving is a lonely business. And sometimes it feels especially lonely.

I call Ed and convince him that any dating material on the planet would not go out biking when the other was packing, stacking and generally feeling exhausted by life.

Ed comes over, we eat sushi, watch the Tour de France. Up and down, pedals go up and down. I zonk out.

And suddenly it is midnight. I need to be up and packing, I am wishing it to be ten days from now.

At 2:30 at night we drive the pick-up to the condo. A load of fragile stuff that I do not want to box.

It’s Ed’s first visit to the finished condo (and perhaps only second or third visit there at all). He mumbles something about it having entertaining potential and retreats to the balcony.

Yes, I know it -- Ed hates the condo. I try very very hard not to mind.

In the morning, I close the deal. I am a condo owner.

The movers come. Nice guys. I ply them with organic raspberry juice which they tell me is the best on the planet, the best, the best, almost as good as the tip they will be getting from me.

Two men and a truck. Plus one woman and a truck, for I have borrowed Ed’s pick up to take over things that I just do not feel like packing.

It is a long day.

A very long day.

Wish I had slept some.

Truth is, though, I love the small little condo. It is mine not only because it is mine, but because it has just me fumbling all over it. So that it bears my mistakes. My shortcomings.

Two men and a truck. Me and a truck. Out of the loft. Into my new space.