We jumped off a cliff when we retired. We moved from Delaware on the east coast to Traverse City in northern Michigan. We knew no one, we knew nothing about the town. All we knew is that the Record-Eagle newspaper seemed liberal enough and there seemed to be things going on. And Interlochen. And our cottage would be only an hour away. In comparison, this move to Cordia is the highest cliff we’ve ever jumped off of. At the moment, we’re in free-fall, not sleeping worth a darn.
Yesterday we loaded our winter coats and as many clothes as possible in the car, picked up wardrobe boxes from the mover, put them together in our little storage unit, and hung our things in them. We have five plastic bins full of clothes already stored in our new little apartment, where the very sloping ceiling adds some space in the back of the closet. The rods themselves are so short I don’t know how I’m going to manage. Pack away more stuff, I guess.
All this fiddling and fussing is a way to direct our attention away from the main event, which is moving to a place we both feel psychologically younger than. Our preconceptions may be wrong. But this is the feeling. We look around at our beautiful condo and ask each other, “Remind me why we’re doing this?”
Well, Jerry has such trouble getting around. To get in the car, drive to a meeting or dinner downtown, park, and get into a building is a task. Winter keeps him indoors, mostly. I panic if he has to get out on the ice. He’d be happier, we both felt, if things to do were more accessible. Then too, my cancer last fall. And I wouldn’t mind having dinner available to us every night.
That was the thinking. I could go on about the things available, the exercise classes, yoga, etc., but that begins to sound like justification. We find ourselves justifying because it all seems so improbable.
We both are going on faith here, in the same way we moved to Traverse City. On intuition. Truth is, a lot falls to me because Jerry can’t do much. I intuit I will feel more at ease, freer, knowing there’s more help available. I think I could leave home and travel for several days and know he has everything he needs at hand.
Books: 26 boxes go to storage, 4 boxes to Cordia, and we’ve given 24 boxes to Paul at Landmark Books.
We intuit this move will be a good thing. But oh my, the transition of it! The emotional transition of it. Instead of a mix of people around us, young and old, there will be only old. I’m resourceful. We both are. We’ll figure this out. But it’s not figured out yet. Of course we haven’t even moved yet! Movers come on June 6. You know how anticipation is always harder than the actual thing.
It's not only psychological. It’s also incredibly complicated. Most of our things will remain in storage at the movers, waiting for a larger apartment to open up. We will have no access to them, so we have to make sure that, should this wait go on into the winter, we have what we need. Hence, the plastic bins of clothes, the wardrobe boxes in our own small storage unit.
I have to figure out how many of my pots and pans to keep, what to give away. How much will I cook? I don’t know. I have a large drawer full of spices. What will I do with them? Which ones shall I take along? How can you ever know what spices you might need?
Which ones would you take with you? What do you use the most?
Shall we keep all 12 plates, or cut it down to 6 or 8? When we have a larger apartment, will we have dinner parties again? We’ve already shipped Jerry’s large oak table to his daughter Pam. Shall we keep the small table I bought or get another larger one later? Will we want to bring guests to the Cordia dining room for dinner? Food is exceptionally good, but it’s like eating in a restaurant, not intimate, like dinner at your own house.
Such a perfect example of the suffering brought on by trying to lock things down. Not a fault! Humans need to figure things out, plan. We aren’t milkweed seeds. We don’t like to be blowing in the wind. But it is helpful, I think, to acknowledge the not-knowing variety of suffering. To see it.
Makes me think of King Midas. He thought it would be great if everything he touched would turn to gold. He insisted, so Dionysus granted him that wish, only to find that everything he touched was suddenly frozen. Cold. Gold, yes, but no longer alive. Aliveness means unpredictability, movement, warmth, uncertainty. King Midas ended up begging to have the spell removed. People say this myth is about greediness, but I think it’s about extreme control versus not-knowing. Not-knowing is what being alive is. Bring alive is potent, exuberant, and sometimes scary as hell.