Relocating
“I
give this to take with you: Nothing remains as it was. If you know
this, you can begin again with pure joy in the uprooting.” Judith
Minty (Letters to My Daughter)
I
drove up to North Carolina yesterday, 400 miles, through river gorge
and mountain wilderness, to help my cousin, Sandy, move into a new
house. After I arrived, we unpacked boxes and arranged furniture,
went out to dinner with her brother and talked, and talked, and
talked, the way you do when you haven't seen folks in a while. We had
a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Today, just getting
out of bed felt like work.
When
you have had years to accumulate belongings, an overwhelming amount confronts you in a move. Sandy did all the right things for one
who is “down-sizing”; she had an estate sale that lasted for
three days, and sold loads of stuff. She donated and consigned and
threw away; but there is still so much stuff to go through that it
seems a daunting task—and, of course, it does not fit into a
smaller place.
When
we change locations, we also confront all the sentimental attachments
we have to things that, in and of themselves, have no intrinsic
value. I think of all the things I have kept over the span of years—childhood drawings from my boys, packets of toys for future
grandchildren, footlockers full of stuffed animals that bring back
memories of baby days—and the list goes on and on. In my case, too,
there are all the things I was going to “do something with.” Do
you have that syndrome, too? “Oh, I can't throw that away! I could
do something so cute with it!” And thirty years later, it's still
right where I stashed it. I open boxes and wonder, “Why on earth
did I save that?”
Many
times, we are so busy going through the mountain of work involved in
moving, that we are unaware of our bodies—we can't be aware of them
or we will never get through it. It's not uncommon to hurt oneself,
to strain muscles, to hold ourselves tight to compensate, and just
keep going. When we finally exhale, we realize we're in a log of
pain. All the leaving, all the giving away, all the work, all that
unresolved history, has settled in a joint, or our back, or under a
shoulder blade. It's the body's way of focusing our attention.
Nothing
remains the same, even when you stay in place. But moving is a whole
other order of business. Sandy must now begin again. And when she
gets everything unpacked she may begin to experience the joy in the
uprooting—but not yet. Right now, there are just boxes and paper,
and more boxes and more paper...
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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