Moving is like pushing the curtain back, like wiping dust off a glass table and there it ALL is. All that stuff you've been stuffing into boxes, corners, under chairs: Objects, feelings, emotions, memories. It's turning your life on it's head a bit and life is expecting you to just take it.
For over 20 years, I've lived someplace above street level; someplace where there exists a life lived on all sides, someone on the right, someone on the left, someone above me and someone below me. I've never questioned it, never thought it might be different. The sound of footsteps above me or the sound of music below me, someone's TV beside me, has always felt, if not particularly enjoyable, at the very least normal. Watching the street below me and the people living their lives on the sidewalk opposite me has been a true staple of city living.
Packing up boxes, not quite sure when they'll be opened back up is....um....stressful. I envision it like working with a true hoarder and asking them keep? sell? donate? or... the box you'll never open again: trash? As someone who collects and purges pretty much all year, the acts of both seem quite small until faced with everything all at the same time. And while the voices of reason (currently: my husband, my sister, my friend Karen, my brother-in-law) all say, just throw it in a box, don't worry about it, anything that's deep storage goes in a box first, put a few important things aside.... well, as a collector and a working artist, they ALL feel incredibly, irrationally important. And the thought of 'deep storage' of anything makes me wish I'd never heard the word. I don't feel like anything I own should be in any kind of storage that isn't totally accessible for when the creative ah-ha moment hits!
Moving: It brings out the best in us, it brings out the worst in us. It raises a lot of shit to the top.
Someone finally said the same words I'd been thinking: Moving in your younger years seemed so cool and 'lets have a pizza' kind of times...where did those go?! I love the idea of being in a new town, meeting new people, living so very differently than I was, or than I even thought might be. I love knowing I have no idea what might happen in this next city.
I do know there's no one above us
and no one below us,
and there is one person on one side of us.
The other side of that is a yard. A first in over 20 years.
Even with all the roiling, I'm excited for what's next.
4 comments:
I've got your back Molly, on all of the collected goods! If I can't grab what I know I want, it makes me crazy.
Yet I am learning again, to open space, to allow new to come in!
Cheers to the open yard, it will be fun to stretch your eyes, after 20 years, my City girl.
All the Best for your journey ahead, I send you love!
XOXO, Hol
Hi, I'm here via Pam Garrison's blog. This is the first time I've read your blog ... and OMGoodness, me too!!! I've been living in a condo for 7 years. Okay, not as long as you have, but all those things you said, I feel like you just read my mind.
Btw, do you work at French General? You look familiar :)
Good Luck with the move!
I know just how you feel. I go through this every couple of years. yikes! Even now when I simply need to put some things in storage, temporarily mind you, so that I can paint a few rooms in the house I'm hemming and hawing over which things I can't live without, that need to be at hand. We're talking temporary! Silly goose.
I really enjoy your writing :)
Yes, moving used to feel like I could just do it all in a day:-/.
Several years ago moved to a much bigger place and still have art supplies and items from previous place, but if ding your blog was through this in a way; was looking through my 1980s ken brown postcard stash, went to his blog,and saw yours ,and voila here I am!
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