A Moving Experience

People let me tell you about the moving game. It's a lot of pain for a little gain. I was a pawn in the game and got played. Back pain, scratches and bruises magically appear at the end of the day. Who said moving is a great way to implement change? They aren't moving anytime soon are they?

Yes, I have moved and it has taken me since the last post not only to move, but try to recuperate and get set up in my new place.  Everyone doesn't move well, I am one of them, but a change was a comin'. It came and somewhat dragged me along, half of me went willingly, the other half went kicking a screaming. So what's the big issue about moving? Well, here's a little story and it goes like this.

After ten years of living in one place, it was time to move. At first, it seemed like a task that could be handled. Here was a chance to start over someplace new, then it became a daunting task, a major chore to complete. I did not know that packing up a house would be so....HARD! Since it was planned, I packed a little everyday, labeling boxes, sorting through old things and cleaning out the excess baggage that had lived with me all these years. Working within my budget did not include a moving company complete with helpers to get the stuff out the house.  No, it was me, my husband and one or two others who rotated in and out of the help zone and a U-haul. Never, ever again! I will save my pennies everyday until the next time just to have the luxury of a moving company come with people to help pack.

While sorting through the memories of the house, I found my class photo from high school, my cap and gown, my prom dress that my mom made for me and a host of other memories too numerous to mention. Did I mention that I was living in the house my mom bought back in 1979! When we moved in, it was already furnished and decorated with someone else's ideas and designs. I should have emptied it out then, but I was excited about being able to return to the home that I spent my early teens and twenties blinded me to the fact that if we ever moved, we would be the ones cleaning all this stuff out.

Once the packing began, my eyes opened up, real wide. There was sooo much stuff, especially in the basement, a culmination of our stuff and the 20 years prior that had accumulated.  We were overwhelmed with what to do with all this stuff. How do we get rid of it all? We wanted and needed to lighten our load, and I did not want my parents furniture. It was solid wood, heavy and bulky, it had served us well in the house. But we just couldn't fathom moving it out and moving it in somewhere else. Besides, I wanted my to be able to have my new home set up the way I wanted, with my own things. A yard sale was out of the question, the homeowners association doesn't allow it. The difference between a single family home and a town home is lawn space, so no yard sales. So I began calling places that would accept donations. My mom had a large formal dinning room set. Unlike today's  smaller dinning rooms, this was solid mahogany wood furniture made in the 1950's (no, not old enough to be antique and I wasn't holding on to it until it became one);  A one piece breakfront or china cabinet, buffet, tea cart, table that seats six. Yes, sounds lovely doesn't it, but I had no idea of how the movers got it into the house, but I was about to find out how it was going to be taken out. But before that could happen, it had to be emptied. I don't own a dinning room set, so I had no place to store the china she collected, nor did I want it. When my sister said she wanted it, I breathed a sigh of relief. She has a daughter to pass it on to, I don't. My niece probably could care less about the china, she's in college and it's not a thought for her right now. Here's the thing, my mom's been dead for 25 years, the furniture has been sitting unused for that long and was covered up for the last 10 years. At first my sister wanted the dinning room set so I didn't sell it, but she never came to get it. By the time we were getting ready to move, my sister had become ill and just getting the china was going to be a major accomplishment for her.  Needless to say, my aunt and I packed up the china and my aunt took the china to my sister. I donated the heavy dinning room set, and heavy bedroom furniture.

During the fifteen years between my mom's death and us moving in, my father had made the drawers in the dinning room his catch-all for things. What a pleasure it was to separate the good stuff from junk, I mean how far away was the trash can Dad!? Slowly, I was starting to feel like I was on an episode of hoarders, the light version. Little did I know that it was an actual episode when I hit the basement. I kept telling myself it wasn't that bad, we had cleaned out somethings when we moved in, guess we didn't clean out the right areas. O M G! the storage space under the basement stairs was crammed with stuff. Everything from big gift boxes of Xmas ornaments, cedar closets with clothes still in them, an old freezer, (I remember my mom buying things in bulk and then freezing them in it) an old grill, vacuum cleaner, books, dishes, my old roller skates along with every drawing and writing paper my son ever did, and that's only a few things found.  The space was super tight cause my dad had the basement finished and the contractor just built around those things I guess. There was about maybe 3-4 ft of space between the outer wall and the cedar closet doors. My aunt, God bless her, was small enough to be able to get in there past the cedar closet to the lower part of the stairs and  pull all the boxes out from that part. My fat ass wasn't able to squeeze between the wall and the closet doors at all. The basement just filled me with dread, I tried to avoid it and focus on the rest of the house. My dad and my husband had massive magazine collections, my dad collected playboy, my husband collected music mags.

When I went to clean out what was supposed to be a studio but ended up being a storage place for my work, I found my own hoard of stuff called Art supplies! My friend Sarah, came over to help me and I loaded her down with a bag of stuff. I then donated two bags of supplies to a teacher friend of mine for her school, packed what I wanted to keep and trashed the rest.  That should be the end of it, but no, that damn basement had more supplies in boxes that I had yet to uncover. The funny part of that is, I almost couldn't give them away. I offered a large garbage bag full of yarn, mostly new to someone that I knew made a living crocheting and knitting for $20, turned it down.  I finally found someone through my aunt, who wanted the bag and couldn't believe that I didn't want more for it. By this time, I just wanted to get rid of it. The same was true for my Masonite boards, they got trashed. The accumulated artwork seemed to come from nowhere, popping out the woodwork saying "hey, don't you forget about me, I'll be alone thrown out and broken baby."

By this time I was through, moving day just meant moving out the things I wanted to keep. I spent an entire week after moving still cleaning the house out. Meanwhile, my new home looked like one big storage unit. Ugh! now I have to unpack this stuff, my back, knees, arms, and eyeballs hurt from moving. All I could do was take Aleve and shake my head as I walked passed my own packed things in disbelief. I donated three times, and that's 3 times that a truck backed up to the door and took stuff out.  Bulk trash was called 4 times and I know they were hating me by then. Stored a few things at my aunts barn. She has an Alpaca farm, and I got to climb up a ladder w/my stuff in tow, working my fatback and bingo wings out (my arms for those who don't know what bingo wings are) Feel a slightly more toned now (look at that body ahw, I work out!) with more scratches on my hands and arms, then I get when carving stone. Still left a lot behind because every time we looked, there was another box, bag or something that had to be looked at. I was done looking and trying to figure out WTF to do with this shit. That's right shit, no longer our stuff, it was long past that. Hoarders would have had a field day with us. I needed an intervention and an ice cold beer. It took us a week before we could begin unpacking our own stuff. We just lived out of boxes and bags for that time. Even though we are more settled, there are still boxes and bags about, but my art space is set up. Did that rather quickly, since I lost a roll of fat moving all my....stuff. That beer still sounds really good.

Guess now I can focus on my new place and new beginning. I really like the diverse neighborhood we are in, with the Hispanic grocery stores bakeries and shops. I can work on improving my Espanol. Plus, I can get anywhere from here via bus, with little or no use for the subway or a car for that fact, buses run every 20-30 minutes, 7 days a week.  Bus hoping at it's best. Another way to work my body out, cause walking up the hill to the nearest bus stop ain't no joke, especially in the heat. That beer will be walked off in a matter of 12-15 minutes which is how long it takes to walk from my place to the nearest bus stop at a normal walking pace. At the old place, buses only run this frequently during rush hour, non rush hour and weekends they run every hour, nothing past 10 pm. Better have cab fare or good shoes on your dogs at that time.

It's on to bigger and better things. I will always have the memories of the house, but it was time to go and now it's a whole new world, so shiny bright and new! So onward and upward from here. BTW, come join me this Friday, June 7 6:30-8:00 for my first member show at the Touchstone Gallery, located on 9th and NY Ave. N.W. a short walk from Gallery Place 9th street exit. The exhibit will last until the end of the month.




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