You already know this. If you Google “moving” you will find it on every therapist’s and layperson’s list of the top five of life’s greatest stressors, right up there with death of a loved one (I doubt this is an equivalent) and divorce (I wouldn’t know). I do know this—it’s an experience shared by just about all of us who are fortunate to have had a home, rented or owned.
When I tell people I am moving, they collapse with memories of their own “moving house” and extend their sincere sympathies. I have moved many times, but this time I am all-caps MOVING, which means from a big house to a smaller one, from a house with an enormous basement to one with none, from a home of 24 years, where I arrived as a bride, to a brand new adventure.
Downsizing, which means sorting and getting rid of acres of stuff to various new homes, is as emotionally involving as it is physically demanding. My own experience quickly became an archeological dig of my own many decades of life on this planet. I laughed, cried, found birthday cards from my mother, always “To a Perfect Daughter” (I surely wasn’t), sweet notes left by my husband when he traveled for work. I struggled to recall the significance of some things, remembered just about all of the authors of saved love letters. I’d have to write a book to take you on the entire journey with me. Here were a few of the things I realized I treasured the most, and were the very satisfying part of this project called moving.
Baby shoes, mine. Probably my very oldest personal possession. Purchased by an excited young father (mine) who was delighted to be bringing home his infant daughter’s first pair of shoes after working the second shift. “Let’s wake her up and put them on her,” he begged my mother. She didn’t remember if they waited until morning. Probably not. (Photo, top)
A receipt from 1984 for transport on a Hovercraft, headed up the Pearl River to Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China, just a year after China had opened travel to individuals (meaning not formal groups.) It was the beginning of a month long unforgettable trip throughout a country where people, those alive before the Mao years, begged for updates of the outside world; in rural areas there were those who were seeing a Caucasian face for the first time. Lots of trains where a reserved seat meant nothing as the occupancy of every car was at least double or triple that of the number of “hard seat” benches, people reclining on floors and often in the overhead luggage racks. A decidedly different universe for the girl who grew up on the North Side of Pittsburgh and was supposed to stay there and marry a steelworker and live across the street. (I didn’t.) No photo of the receipt because I packed it in one of my boxes of treasures and of course, at this point don’t know exactly which one.
And finally, the pillow that caused me to sob. This pillow has been with me since before I left home for college. In my early numerous moves, my big brother Bob was always there, lugging the boxes, stuffing the car trunk and back seat, and each time when space became non-existent, he’d grab the gold pillow and say “Do you really have to take this?” And I would yell—as though he should have known the answer— “yes!!!” And he would sigh, maybe stifling an expletive, rearrange, and pound that pillow into as few cubic inches of space as possible. It of course became a running joke; no subsequent move was complete without that bit of theater. In later years, he’d sometimes ask if I still had it, emphasis on the still.
I lost my brother unexpectedly last year and it has left a hole in my heart. Noting that I have not used the pillow for a very long time and its obvious state of wear (like in The Velveteen Rabbit*), it was my husband who asked this time, “Are we taking this to the new place?” I mopped my face. Still, I said to the ghost of my brother.
And to my husband, finally, I answered, “No doubt.”
Love you, Bob.
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Note: Despite the moving, Artful will continue although it may be a little scarcer over the next several weeks. You didn’t think I would leave the Upper Valley, did you?
And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.
*”Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit.