Chapter Endings

I don't think there's an experience quite so graphic for marking off chapters in one's life as moving. When the movers come in like an ant invasion, touching, shifting, packing, boxing up and disposing of everything that makes up one's nest, it's impossible not to feel a part of your life ending. It's the big Control-Enter that gives you the Page Up for the next phase of your life. We have been married 38 years and this is our 15th move. It gets harder, not easier. We are older now and the nest has been through so much. There is more to protect since starting a new nest from scratch is beyond the years or willingness we have at this point.

The accumulation is smack in your face during a move. The boxes and boxes and boxes......and you keep thinking that you had gotten rid of so much of your junk because THIS TIME it was going to be different. You don't need that stuff! Where did it come from??? If I had to name everything I thought was in the boxes--and I could only get back what I could remember having-- I think those items would fill maybe a quarter of the boxes that are on the trucks.

Taking the long road trips in the RV opened my eyes to the freedom of not hauling around a lot of stuff on the journey. It sounds so noble to type that. But in reality, one gets things, one is given things, one uses things once a year, etc. I could open a Santa's Village with just the Christmas decorations alone!!! It will be strange this year--we won't have a Christmas. We will observe Christmas--but we won't DO CHRISTMAS. I wonder if it will matter.

At this stage of our lives more chapters have been written and closed than there are chapters left to write. A good editor could pare this life story down to a few pages--no chapters even needed. Will this book have mattered?




In an empty house you see every nail still in the walls. Every spot on the carpet glares twice its discoloration. Every nick in the wood, every chip in the tile jumps out to the homeowner's eyes. I know--the movers must have done all that dinging. We were far too careful to have ever run a dolly into a white hall wall and left that black skid. That's it--it's all their fault.

I'm reminded once again that a major theme in most lives is that there are far too many good-byes compared to hellos. People go; health goes; scenery changes; concerns unimaginable in your thirties start to be traveling companions in this chapter.









Not much is humorous about a move I suppose. There are no funny stories to tell. I did ask the movers if I happened to bop Mr Toccata a good one would they put him into a big box and put him in storage in San Jose but they didn't find that amusing. Perhaps they've actually moved a body before! Maybe humor is cultural. However, I am happy to report that all the movers speak English and are all legal. That was checked and approved before the first roll of tape was out of the truck!




More will follow. We are now between residences as they say. Back to the desert for a few days to catch our breath then up to the Bay Area and into a KOA until we come up with a plan for the next few months. Now there's a good thought--for the first time in a quarter century we are without a mortgage payment!