Moving On and Happy to do It

This is our home now, the place we walk and discover and renew our commitment to the land and each other. We have owned this small patch of Central Florida in the Green Swamp for many years but until now it was not our primary residence.

We have sold our town house in St. Petersburg. The closing is next week. We are expecting to move to a place with our daughter and her son, maybe a duplex. But for now we are in limbo when we want to be in St. Pete where we have deep roots and love to see our friends.

I thought it would be sad to leave the town house after eight years, most of them before we retired. But as I look back, we were hardly ever there in daylight and at night we were busy still working on the ends of our day responsibilities.

As we approached the task of moving out of this place that for so long has seemed very impersonal compared to the ranch, we discovered so many 'nests' of stuff that had to be dismantled: Photos of the grandchildren, small drawings made by my favorite students, boxes of stuff left over from previous moves, and, of course, the junk drawers where everything was stowed. We took yet another vow to reduce the stuff.

We beat it into some kind of order for the packers and movers who will come next week and trucked a few boxes of stuff to the ranch. We incorporated the clothes and books we wanted to keep and took a whole bale to the Hospice thrift shop and the local library. I had a box of my treasures from many trips to South America so I changed the theme in the powder room from cows to the Amazon. Out with all those cows! They have gone to the attic because I cannot yet get rid of all the cow paraphernalia given to me by students. (I will sort out the attic boxes later- much later.)

So that left us with a table full of silver candy dishes and petit four plates and old jewelry from our mothers. Finally, I packed this up into boxes and it too will go into the attic.

For now, it seems that all our stuff has been culled. Today Andy went to a machine in the supermarket that counts coins, with ten years of loose change we had stashed in little containers everywhere. It amounted to $67.83! My studio is swept and the pencils are where they should be.

Tomorrow, I will throw the dimes found in the bottom of the dryer into some small container. I will throw that tack or that eraser or that set of instructions for some one of our possessions into the pristine junk drawer. Tomorrow, the new projects will spill over into disorganized joy.

I hate moving! It is a limited opportunity.