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Oh the decisions that one is called upon to make when moving. What items are keepers and which ones are givers-away. The pressure of being the decider of the fate of inanimate objects is enough to make one sit inert for days on end. Especially for a someone like me who is well known in my family and circle of friends for being the quirky one who names her inanimate objects and carries on two-way conversations with said named objects.
Object (“O”): Please don’t set me out on the sidewalk for anyone of any moral or immoral character to take me.
Me: But it’s your time to go.
O: Please. Please keep me.
Me: I think your next home will be kinder to you – your face won’t get so dusty and your view might be better. You know you sat in that corner for five years.
O: And I never complained. Now that must be worth something.
And the debate goes on and on. Do you see the pressure of which I speak? I have had visions of setting everything out on the sidewalk or the trash can and running away. No forwarding address. No note left behind. Less dramatically, I have also had visions of just packing everything. Not sorting. Just picking up each and every thing in the Attic that we have acquired and putting all of the stuff into boxes to be sorted through at a later date. But there is the small matter of the moving pallets and the storage fees.
So I have returned to the original plan of sorting and packing. Oh but it’s tiresome. Fatiguing as well. Exhausting too.
If I needed further proof that I am rapidly approaching the end of one journey, the closing of a chapter(s), and getting ready to transition onto other adventures, I have received the evidence in the form of exit interviews ~ multiple exit interviews. Final evaluations at my internship site with multiple personnel and exit interviews with my school’s administration, including the financial aid powers that be. Don’t get me wrong, I am not grousing about these taking leave formalities as they serve numerous purposes. For me, the valuable message is you are approaching the end of an epic journey rejoice!
Of course, like in most things in life there are some true endings and some forks in the path where the life journey continues on a different highway or side road with different scenery. What is true in this particular instance, is that I am indeed coming to the final destination of my academic journey of earning my doctorate degree in clinical psychology. There is another path that I continue to trundle toward the full licensure destination but the degree destination’s ribbon busting (as in marathon race imagery) is well within sight. Just another 13 days. and in the big picture of this endeavor, 13 days is nothing. well they’re something(s) as a lot of living will be lived within their 24 hour segments but let’s put it this way, I am a darned sight closer to that finish line today than I was in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, or 2007.
I’ll take the Gatorade that will surely be offered at the end of the race, that’s for sure!
sometimes friendships are found in unlikely pairings and sometimes it takes a while for one of the friends in the pair to notice what the other friend is offering. In these instances, I am heartened and grateful that the knowing friend was persistent.
This is not the first time that I have stumbled upon a friend who has been there for a while before my noticing.
What does this say about my psyche?
a day of repose.
one day out of seven strung together.
rest
a good read
or two.
the boxes the stuff
pushed aside
while a day of leisure
snuggles onto this plum hued
velvet sofa with me.
@junemoon 2008
Finding Home. The Long Walk Home. Searching for Home. Redefining Home. Home Is Where the Heart Is. There’s No Place Like Home. Home Is What You Make It.
Yes. This is another post about my personal musings on the topic of home. and I must in all good conscious warn you, that there may be more on the way. not homes necessarily (but who knows what’s over the horizon) but posts about my first paragraph’s titles. This is a timely subject for me as I am actively in my search for home and, as usual, am in a redefining sort of mood as well.
After I was adopted by the White American Older than Most First Time Parents, we lived their dream (or at least mama’s dream) of being an Alaskan Pioneer. We homesteaded their 160 acre spread of land. During my growing up years, we cut down trees, built two cabins, gardened, and survived off the land. Some of the homesteading adventures were interrupted by years of living a rural existence in Maryland along the Eastern Shoreboard. But in my child’s mind, country was country and the places we lived in Maryland (with one exception in a small village) felt like homesteading as we did not have electricity, water, or indoor plumbing.
In my adulthood, I have come to refer to places I live/d as _______ Homestead. Like the Duplex Homestead, the Downtown Homestead, the 10th Avenue Manor Homestead… But the Attic where I have lived for almost five years has been simply the Attic. Although the piece of land where the Attic is situated may, indeed, have been someone’s homestead at some point in history, it has been just our Attic. I have lived here in the Attic for longer than I have lived anywhere in my adult life.
The Attic has provided a beautiful physical space to live in, a feeling of safety – three floors above the sidewalk and street, as well as shelter during these five years. The Attic, however, has never felt like my home. Maybe because I knew that Moving Day was bound to arrive as I was here to attend school and earn a degree. Maybe because after having moved 50+ times already that I do not know how to put down roots. Maybe because I am a Korean adoptee who left my original home too early. Maybe because I need to redefine the word home. Whatever the reason(s), I am moving on down the road, taking leave of the Attic.
I will definitely miss this living space. I wonder if the next place I live will be a Homestead or who knows, maybe just Home.
I am moving. again. for the 50+ time in my 50 years of living this particular life. and when I say moving, I don’t mean to my own beat (although I have been known to do that most of my adult life) nor do I mean moving along my path (although that could be extrapolated from the major move). No, I mean moving as in where I live, as in moving from the current Attic apartment.
The SO and I decided that we will store our belongings for the summer and that includes my car, Harvey. We will then find another rental in September after spending the summer in Alaska. That is our plan. We are currently at the front end of that plan. The sorting and sifting stage. letting go. passing on. throwing out of stuff. tenderly wrapping precious treasures.
Seeings how I moved into the Attic space almost five years ago with two big suitcases and a blowup bed, the act of sorting and packing probably isn’t such a big task. Right? Loud buzzer or gong sound. Wrong. The SO and I are both garage sale (aka “GS”) lovers. We have also been quite busy and lucky in the spying and retrieving of “set out free for the taking” sidewalk stuff. Quick conclusion, we have a bunch of stuff crammed into the Attic.
For me, sorting through belongings and paperwork and photographs and memorabilia is never a two step process. I seem to have a built in emotional upheaval and processing of my feelings stage that is predictable in its occurence but unpredictable in its length or intensity. As a result, sorting takes an inordinate amount of time and I have yet to really dig into the piles and boxes and heaps.
Did I mention that we need to have vacated our Attic in three weeks?
Yikes.
is it this hot in hell? Renovated or not, my Attic abode is holy hot! It was 80 degrees in the Big City this morning at 9 AM and hotter in Berkeley by then. I know. I know. There are places where it’s hotter than this, all the time. and the point would be?! My point right now, is that it’s Hot here in the City tonight.
Good thing I have a Vornado fan trained on my head while I type this post. Not really. A good thing that is. I do, indeed, have the fan blasting away directed at my head that’s trying to dry the rivulets of sweat that are dripping down my forehead. I know. Eeeew. TMI. Sorry.
Hey, I lived in Alaska for many years. I am not used to 90+ degree temps!
One of the revolving topics I write about here is public transportation. Specifically, how I get from City to Big City (aka ‘BC’), how I get around while I am in the BC, and my return trip to my Attic apartment in the City. I am a BART’er (Bay Area Rapid Transit’er) and a muni bus’ser, typically three days per week. On an average (whatever that really means) day, there is never a dull moment on these modes of transit. There may be filthy seats and floors, fetid and really odiferous air non-quality, a full spectrum of commuters occupied in anything from really interesting behaviors to totally gross or ‘no, you’re not going to…’ behaviors ~ but after almost two years of this thrice weekly commute, I can honestly say there has not been a dull moment.
Well, I think things are going to get livelied up even more here very quickly. Today is slated to be in the 80’s in the BC, tomorrow even hotter. When the ambient temp rises so do the human angers. Short fuses burn up fast and go caboom. We human folk tend to be a messy, sweaty, loud lot come summer time.
So I’m holding onto my briefcase/tote bag/purse extra tight as I head down those subway stairs. When I surface (and I will, right?) I’ll have stories to tell. Of that I am sure.
Since I am quickly (if you call almost five years, one day at a time, quick) approaching the finish line of my educational journey and if all goes as hoped, I will be conferred my doctorate in clinical psychology in less than one month (which translates to less than 28 days), my thoughts are interrupted by ways in which to reward myself for my hard and diligent work. Mind you, I have already rewarded myself here and there this past month with little semi-precious stone trinkets, visits from beloved familia members, a side trip to Reno (where believe you me I did not just sit in my hotel room not spending any dough), a side trip to Point Reyes, and some danged good meals cooked by someone else(s) and served up in some pretty settings. But hey, this is a pretty doggone big accomplishment, right?
And so I daydream and spin possible scenarios in my noggin with my creative paintbrush or since I am spinning these creations, would it be my creative spinning wheel… For this post, the implement of creation does not really matter as much as the wish list in my dreams ~
- a week in a beautiful luxury condo on or near my favorita Alaskan beach shared with familia and friends that would include, but not be limited to, numerous walks along the water’s edge, adding to my rather impressive seashell and rock collection, several bonfires over which various meats would be roasted (apologies to the sacrificial animals), lots of board games with my grandkiddos, and some big wins at the poker table.
- a brand new digital SLR camera with personalized lessons and unlimited time and focus with which to hone my craft.
- a glass blowing class that includes an aptitude (on my part) and patience (on the teacher’s part) to develop a new creative outlet.
- time (guilt free) to hang out (translated into visiting, eating, and laughing) with friends.
- the guarantee of passing the EPPP national exam after diligent summer studying.
- or hell as long as I’m wishing, the guarantee of passing the national exam without one whit of study.
So there are some of my wishes. Oh and one more ~
- the ability to skip a stone at least 10 skips. No, make that 15.
I have yet to see one
wave.
A wave seems to come in numbers
even more than pairs.
heat wave
ocean wave
waves of despair.
@junemoon 2008
