Time to get serious here: I have a couple of days to pack up my life and move. (Doesn't that sound dramatic?) But of course, if I don't transfer everything that I need this Wednesday, I can come back for it anytime. Ed and I are not at war. We will never be at war. We are each others besties, in that at the most trivial level and at the most profound, we have shared something deeply rewarding for the both of us. I'm moving not because that has been ruptured, but because I need him to open his eyes to a reality that he refuses to acknowledge. It's that simple.
It's nearly a scorcher today. Misty at first, but very quickly the mist melts into nothing and the sun warms the world around me.
Once again, I eat breakfast on the porch, alone, with my lists, but also with a picture of the ocean. Ed send me a tracker of where his boat is at any given time. They left the harbor today and are heading south.
Boxes. I need to put stuff in boxes for when the movers come. I thought I did not need too many. We always imagine we have less junk than we actually have. That is the curse of capitalism: it requires more boxes for moving. I remember when I moved from Poland to America in 1972. I had two rather small suitcases with me. True, I was moving into someone else's home, but still I left behind pretty much everything. My parents threw away all that my sister didn't manage to salvage for me. Now? I'm moving more than just two suitcases.
At lunchtime I take a break. After a week of being away on vacation, Bee is back online and I take the time to talk to her. Funny how much can change in a week! She knows me really well and yet this decision of mine came as a shock to her. So I wrap it in the context of events, feelings, belief system that at the core of it all.
And then it's back to boxes.
When you do a move you face these realities: 1. Even those of us who do not acquire new stuff on a regular basis, the accumulation over time is incredible. Of what? Oh, everything! At the very least, you learn that you have more stuff (more boxes!) than you thought you had. 2. Dirt hides well. Try moving a bookshelf away from the wall. It's a horror show back there, especially if you live in an old farmhouse where beetles and spiders visit your home on a regular basis. Eventually they die. And create their own graveyard in nooks. 3. You find small things you completely forgot you had. For instance, I came across a photo of Ed that I grabbed when we were going through his parents' stuff some fifteen years ago. You know how he looks now. This is how he looked when he was much younger:
As I reach behind cabinets and empty bookshelves, I realize that I had taken on too much in the last years. I can't keep up with all of it. It's one thing to plant a flower bed (I love that part!), it's another to take on the overgrown farmette lands. To attack weeds everywhere, to create meadows, to trim trees and bushes, to take down tall grasses. And the house is tough too. It's old. Floors should be scrubbed, walls should be cleaned. The glass roof should be washed, the porch ceiling has more cobwebs than I can count. Ed will say that I need do none of this and he is correct, theoretically. But of course, he and I have very different threshold of tolerance. When I moved in, the place was stunningly immaculate. It isn't that anymore. It's another one of those things that we should have addressed early on, but we didn't. Ed and I are very good at coasting, avoiding the difficult in favor of contentedness and calm.
Yes, the young family is here for dinner.
The adults know that it's the last one in the farmhouse. The kids? They know too, but we dont focus on it. Who knows, maybe they'll be back here sooner rather than later.
I clean up quickly and yes, I do remember to put away the chickens and feed the cats. The two older kids help me with that! At the very least they keep my spirits up.
I feel my job now is to stay positive for the whole lot of them in the process of changing my life around. This is when I really want to be at my best -- when I'm embarking on something tough and just a little frightening. This is when I want to dig into my reserves and show my strength. And love. So much love!
