Fall Harvest Moon
This post is for my buddy who’s about to embark on a third phase move. I told him I’d go back through my notes (posts) and see if I could find helpful ideas. This is a very edited sequence, from near the first notion of moving through arrival in Colorado. They’re fragments of longer posts, all from the year 2014, starting roughly in April, when we decided Colorado was in our immediate future. The bold first word indicates an entry.
Two main ideas in here (IMHO) are live in the move and move stupid. Live in the move means, stay focused on what needs to get done, not fantasizing about the future or agonizing about the past. Move the process forward, don’t stew. Move stupid means that the tsunami of decisions, actions, even staying focused takes energy and makes you, at times, dull. Don’t beat yourself up over mistakes, differences of opinion, problem solving. It goes with the territory.
We used A1 moving, a Stevens Van Line company and were happy with them. We also used a local outfit, SortTossPack, that helped us develop a strategy for eliminating things, then helped us pack early. They took items we didn’t want to move and sent them to their consignment shop. We made a little money from that and got rid of things that were in our way.
Here are the fragments. They end in December 2014:
Since making the decision a little over a month ago, we’ve made concrete step after concrete step, each one headed west toward the Rockies. And each one makes a bit more excited. Living in the move, instead of Minnesota or Colorado, has let me go with the process as it flows, allowing my daily actions to flow with it, rather than struggling against difficulties. So far that seems to be working fine.
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.
All of this living in the move means staying in the flow toward Colorado, realizing where the energy naturally goes at this stage and following it. Putting our shoulders behind work at the time it needs to be done means we use the momentum of change to our benefit. Easier than fighting against it, trying to push things to move faster. Then the momentum of change works against us.
Both of us have experienced moving/gardening fatigue this week. Living in the move helps, but it doesn’t eliminate the stress of so many decisions large and small and the feeling of hanging over a precipice neither able to fall or retreat…
It’s a relief to share these feelings, to know that your partner has the slows as well as you. Of course, that’s the definition of a good relationship, sharing the journey, the ancientrail of marriage.
This is a chance to prune my work over the last third of my life, clear out the branches that have grown across each other. Take out that large branch that flourished then died.
It’s the decisions that slow me down. And the memories. And sometimes the memories make the decisions hard. Sometimes not.
Interesting. I’ve been living in the move. Too much. Pushing to get stuff packed, get the exterior work, house and grounds, underway, looking at movers and thinking about storage. Pushing. Turning on my phone and my jambox, listening to country music, Porgy and Bess, the blues, Coltrane while I fill boxes. Stuffing my life in liquor boxes, slapping on red or green tape, some packing tape, stacking them up. In the move. In it.
A weariness has affected both Kate and me. I think I know its source: the move. We’ve pushed in several directions: decluttering, packing, fixing up the house… Yes, we’ve chosen this. And, yes, perhaps even more important, we’re trying to pace ourselves. Which, btw, I think we’ve done pretty well. But the pace has been constant. Add in the growing season and four dogs. You get the picture. Not to mention that we both have had our medicare cards for more than a year.
SortTossPack
Kate said this morning that she had surreal moments with the move. Me, too. We both work along, packing, getting other matters taken care of but the move itself feels unreal, as if a mirage.
Saw an ad for Army Strong. Well, I’m move stupid.
When there’s a lot of details to sort out in something, I focus, a form of move-stupid, and become almost affectless, plowing through things I don’t like to do, but things that stand between here and there.
Our process continues to serve us well, keeping us just ahead of looming deadlines and schedules. It’s been a joint effort all the way.
Back to packing this morning, but the heart’s not in it. It’s not a reluctance to move on, not at all. Rather, it’s a weariness, evident today. Push, push, push.
The trick is to just stay in the moment. Let the day’s packing be sufficient there unto.
Packing takes a toll in these last days. Not sure why, but each day I spend a good deal of time packing really wears me out. Not physically, but emotionally. It’s not resistance to the move itself, as I’ve said here before, rather I think it feels as if the packing has gone on too long.
Things feel chaotic, not out of control, but easy to tip over in that direction. Then, there’s the I can see the other side from here feeling and things tip back into balance, or as much balance as this part of the move allows…
I don’t know whether the speed is good or bad, probably neither, but I do know that once the decision was firm, the desire to execute it swiftly grew. At the same time we have wanted a measured pace, one that allowed us to pack easily
Today packers will finish up what we didn’t get done or didn’t intend to get done. Tomorrow, too, if necessary.
This is, for me, a difficult stretch. Lots of strangers, lots of activity in the house, details. Unfinished business that has to get done by a deadline. Yikes.
Decisions now are summary. Yes, that goes in trash. No, we’re going to put that in the trash, too. Trash wins all ties.
The sleep deprivation demon has come out to play the last couple of nights. Wake up for any reason and, wham! … Just like that your mind is awake and generating a list of things you hadn’t even considered up to that point. How energetic of you, mind.
I’ve noticed, more in recent years, that physical activity which had once been, if not easy, at least doable, taxes me, makes my muscles quiver slightly. Weakness like this has a similar effect to sleeplessness. A doubled effect in this instance. The lowered ability to do work-decline in muscle strength-also affects my sense of maleness. I’m weak, unable to do (fill in the blank), and therefore less of a man. Do I know this is nonsense? Intellectually, yes. Politically, yes. Emotionally? Not so much.
We had help, lots of help. Two different companies helped us pack. Various individuals helped us get our property ready for sale. Realtors have helped us find this house we have now and are helping us sell the one in Minnesota.
And always packing. List making. Lots of communicating, mostly with each other, but with wider family and friends. E-mails, phone calls. More packing, always. Up to the day the movers came and finished the packing for us.
So many decisions, big and small. Working out how to live in the move rather than constantly projecting ourselves out of the present and into the future, so tempting, so damaging.
A major goal of living-in-the-move as an idea was to tamp down the holds and let the anxiety leak out in controlled doses.
Awe, or hitlamdut* in Hebrew, being a learner, being in a constant state of curiosity/awe, was the middah (soul trait) for last month, Elul. This month, Tishrei begins with Rosh Hashanah, and its tenth day is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The period from Rosh Hashanah are collectively the Days of Awe, the High Holy Days in the Jewish liturgical year. Awe is central to the experience of the most sacred days of the Jewish year.
Orion returns as the Great Wheel turns into fall, the beginning of my favorite half of the year, reaching its high point (low point?) on the Winter Solstice. Each year since 1968 Orion has returned as a friend, a companion during lonely, dark nights. It gladdens my heart to see him since he only visits during this time. His return on this particular night was awe-some. Orion got me started on a month of awe.
Here’s an example. Kate and I enjoy eating at the New York Deli, an authentic Jewish deli that happens to be on our route into Jon’s house. We went there a couple of weeks ago and I ordered a white fish platter. It was huge. There was white fish, dollops of cream cheese, capers, tomatoes, onions, lettuce. On the side were two bagels, sesame seed as I had requested. Awe was on my mind so I looked at the platter. This meat came from a white fish that swam in some lake, it’s a freshwater fish, not too long ago. It had to be caught, selected, preserved (probably through refrigeration), processed, packed, stored and shipped. Then it had to be opened, divided and placed on my plate. Imagine all the individual people involved, all the different modes of transportation: boat, truck, maybe rail, maybe airplane. The cream cheese: specific cows were milked, the milk pasteurized (Louis Pasteur), chilled, then sent to a dairy somewhere and used to create the cheese which likewise had to be transported here to end up on the plate. You can see how this goes. The wheat in the bagel: sowen somewhere, cultivated over a growing season, combines in formation harvesting it, more transportation, milling, mixing the flour with eggs and yeast, baking. Growing the sesame seeds. The tomatoes. The onions. The lettuce. Do you see what an amazing, awe-some thing that white fish platter was?
A peculiar sequelae of my new schedule, afternoons remain inchoate. After the nap and before supper. Not sure yet what to do with that. Might be good for games and puzzles? I want to read then, too, and do Latin (or, Hebrew). Perhaps once kabbalah and Hebrew classes get cooking I’ll find this the natural time for that work. The issue is peculiar because once I’ve fed the dogs, gotten my writing done, finished items off my to do list and completed my workout, I’ve already had 7 plus active hours.