Summer                                                       New (Most Heat) Moon

The day after Sort Toss Pack. Kate’s back in bed and I would be too except for my meeting in St. Paul, America Votes. A weariness after a big push. Feels good though. Trying to get all this done in weeks ahead of a move instead of months would have stressed us both. The result might have been a tainted move. Instead, we’re both feeling accomplished and capable, working on our relocation with adequate time and planning.

We’ve now paid the first bill related to the move and well worth it. We’ll get some of the money back from sales in the Sort Toss Pack consignment shop and Half Price books. We have two nibbles on the lawn tractor and one on the long arm quilter. Next week I’m going to work the phones for the Vectra and the leg press. Getting rid of these big items will free up even more space.

The bedroom feels bare and the workout area, with all six bookcases removed feels generic, like I’ve moved my treadmill and weights to a could-be-anywhere rectangle of sheetrock. Odd to have that sense in our own house.

This is all part of the stripping away process, the peeling back of our Minnesota identity, removing particularity here. That’s necessary in the house as it goes on the market. We want someone else to project their life onto its much emptier spaces, seeing themselves moving through their life with this house as theirs, not ours.

(well, maybe not quite this much, but the feelings are comparable)

Instead of grief at the stuff moved away there is exhilaration. Less stuff. Less need to move stuff. Less need to feel bound to stuff. This is, however, a paring down, not an elimination. There are still objects we want with us, but that number dwindles as we gain the psychic chops necessary to sever connections with belongings.

Summer                                                          New (Most Heat) Moon

Many, many red tape boxes are gone. Six bookshelves are gone. An old entertainment center is gone. The credenza, the armoire, the bedside pieces and the large table sized chin-hua are gone. The white chest of drawers and a bookshelf and another tall, narrow shelving unit is gone. All the old wood from the renovation and the dog stalls are gone. Many fragile, no longer wanted, pieces of crystal, stemware and place settings are gone. An industrial size plastic trash bin full of old papers and travel brochures. Gone.

I’m just up from an hour and a half nap. Kate’s still asleep. At a guess we’ve probably moved out half of the things we don’t want to move. I’ve still got a lot of bookshelves to go through and there will be bookshelves and discarded books to go after I’m done, probably sometime in August. The old electronics, a couple of desks, some garden tools, some bee-keeping stuff, tools will go then, too. We still have a few items to sell: the hydroponic set-up, the lawn tractor and its attachments, the long-arm quilter.

Once those are sold and the remaining decluttering items are out of the house, we’ll begin considering storage for items that will go with us.  Some of the remaining furniture will need to be out of the house when we put it on the market next March.

We’ve also begun contracting for smaller work around the house, handyman type things to make the whole place neater and yard work, pruning and maybe some planting. In the winter we’ll have some rooms repainted and the house professionally cleaned. Then, the photographer will come and we’ll begin process of selling the big item. This house.

Summer                                                          New (Most Heat) Moon

Excited this morning. The move gets real today. The movers and packers from Sort Toss Pack show up at 10 am. They’ll move the wood from the garage, freeing up space there, then the red tape boxes from the basement and upstairs. After that load, the movers will take all the green tape boxes to the garage. Meanwhile the packers will be at work, getting stuff that is fragile ready for their trip to the consignment shop.

Kate’s gone through the upstairs like a beneficent locust, sweeping everything before her into boxes or onto the kitchen table for packing. In my turn I’ve sorted out six bookshelves full of books and some DVD’s, only six more standing bookshelves and the ikea bookshelves in the study to go. I’ll be done by the end of August if not before.

After they’ve moved all the books and the scrap wood, the movers will come back and take all of our bedroom furniture except the bed, plus the six empty bookshelves, an empty entertainment center, a chest of drawers and some smaller furniture.

Our house will feel much emptier after today and that’s a good thing. We’re not there yet, not by a long ways, but we’ve made a good start. A very good start. Next week we get the third market analysis and then we’ll choose a realtor from the three we have interviewed. The week after that Jon and Ruth come. Jon will build the deck and Kate will ride back with them to Colorado to meet realtors there and get an on the ground feel for the real estate market out there.

Summer                                                            Summer Moon

William Morris has proved helpful as I make decisions about what to move to Colorado and what we want to sell or donate. His principle, have nothing in your home which is not beautiful or useful, sound on its own in my opinion (and one I’ve honored in the breach for the most part), makes wonderful sense when sorting through, say, crystal.

If it’s elegant, graceful, clean, it goes in a box with green tape. If it was bought in a momentary enthusiasm or received as a well intended gift, red tape. Or, yellow, if we keep it for a possible garage sale. Prints, photographs, paintings will get sorted in the same way. DVD’s and books, too, for that matter. Furniture? Yes. Kitchenware? You bet. Gardening tools? Yep. Beautiful? Green tape. Nice? Red tape.

There is a category, though, that Morris doesn’t address that also has its green tape items. That groundhog headpiece that belonged to Dad? Beautiful? No. Useful? No. Memorable? Outta the park. Yes, sentimentalism will have its own share of boxes, though they will be far fewer than in times past. And, if it were possible, even the sentimental things would be either beautiful or useful, too.

Beltane                                                            Summer Moon

One bookshelf of DVD’s sorted into red (go), green (move). Boxes piling up. We’ll need the Sort Toss Pack folks next Friday or we’ll need a second house for the contents of this one. Hey, Warren! (a friend known for the number of homes he either wholly or partially owned)

The process of getting ready to move, living the move as I think of it, has been good for our relationship and it was already excellent. The process of unstripping one identity and its physical trappings and creating a new identity in a new place has a surprising amount of vulnerability attached. The familiar no longer soothes in quite the same way as it used to. The ease of doing our banking, visiting a pharmacy and going out for  lunch, all of which we did today, will require thought and planning a year from now. A little thing, yes, but add up the little things and they become big.

But, we are doing this together, removing our Minnesota identities while getting ready to put on Colorado ones. Of course there will be continuities, even Minnesota constants, but all will be changed. In the process our relationship is the main constant, the stable spot, yet even it will change, is changing, has been changed. This is what brings us closer together, the journey, one of our own choosing. We have made this decision and bear the consequences as well as the potentials.

Beltane                                                                    Summer Moon

Third realtor interview today. A guy from Ramsey (another ‘burb connected to us to the northwest) who left large real estate companies to found his own. A thoughtful guy with a sound approach and a 5.5% fee. A possibility. It will be a while before he gets back to us, week after next due to a vacation that starts tomorrow. I’m especially interested in his valuation since he understands this market and has sold real estate for 28 years.

Not sure why but I find this process enervating. It doesn’t feel productive to me, even though it’s very important to the success of our move. Or, maybe, it’s just today. Once we’ve selected a realtor things will start moving, though still at a pace we can maintain since next March remains the date for putting the place on the market.