Moving Moments

You either have or want to move to a new place. You find the best one and put yours up for sale and close the deal and prepare to move. It is an exciting adventure until, as all adventures, reality strikes. Where will my things go? Will they fit my new space? How will they look there? Will I like living  where I am going? All of these questions can't truly be answered until you are in your new location. But since you made the decision and have given notice, you are on your way and there is no turning back. Out come the cartons, the best ones, those behind the local liquor store, and you begin to pack up. It seems a simple thing to do and perhaps it is for those who accumulate little. I fear that I am a collector of books, photos, files and small memorabilia. My books are my friends, ones I love to take down from the shelf and dabble in. Some books are throw-aways, others are those to smile into when the need arises. The little icons of places you have travelled bring back unforgettable aromas and tastes and images of far-away. Files hold not only vital matters but also among them, are small margin scraps with jotted tales someone told you about their childhood or crayoned scribbles made by tiny hands in toddlers' languages.  These are what take up moving time. What do you keep and what must be discarded? You begin to see your bared walls and empty rooms and what was once yours is now becoming a strange land. As your time here empties into cardboard, you are making farewells to what comforted you, protected you and warmed your heart. You will soon not come in that door again, that door that welcomed you once and made you feel safe when you closed and locked it. The cartons rise and labels on them are terse: books, utensils, coats. The new place is a stranger you have to get to know. It will feel cold and unaccepting at first. When the movers leave, you and this stranger are alone and you aren't quite sure if you will like each other. You begin to remove what's in the boxes and shyly place them in places you're not sure they will like. You know you can move them later and carry on but you feel the invasion. Pictures and paintings are leaning against the walls, perfectly neutrally. They know as much as you, whether they will fit here. When  you packed all this, you knew what was in each carton but as they piled up, you forgot  where you tucked this or that in just to fill a space. You panic a bit wondering if you will lose things forever as you re-pack for storage. You recall putting small items inside teapots or cooking ware. They were precious, old family pocket watches and jade hand warmers and tiny porcelains of ancient age. But you need the pancake turner for your morning eggs, because it is morning and you found your favorite frying pan, and that is more important right now. Today is a new day, in a new place. This is it. This is where you will come at the end of the next day and all the ones thereafter, and stacked, is  your material life waiting to be revealed anew. You happily realize that maybe it's all mountained in cardboard cubes but its all here and each box you open will be like greeting old friends who will look around, nod at you and fit into your life in a whole new way.  And that's when you are home.