Moving Blues - so many moves, so little time!

My history of moves:

birthplace: Kansas City, Kansas -> Fort Smith Arkansas -> Atlanta, Georgia -> Rockford, Illinois -> Fairbanks, Alaska -> Long Beach, California ->

Those were all before I was six years old. Always dodging bill collectors, my dad would pack his family up and leave by night. No one ever told me in advance. I remember being carried out to lie on piles of stuff in the back seat and my parents passing an old-fashioned thermos - the kind with the lining that could shatter into a million pieces - between them in the front. One black and stormy night my mother spilled the hot coffee on my baby brother. As she pulled his clothes from him, she became hysterical as his skin peeled away too. I remember my father trying to find a hospital. I don't remember anything else.

My dad left when I was sixth, immediately following the birth of my second brother. He left for another woman, but she would not be the last. I know I have at least four half-siblings from one, but there are probably more.

My mom must have been devastated. A poor uneducated girl from Missouri who'd been taken away from her roots and never anywhere long enough to put down more, she headed for Washington DC to look for a job. My brothers and I were sent to live in a foster home in Camp Springs, Maryland (in those days, people could advertise homes for kids and moms sent money - like the Thenardiers in Les Miz).

When my mom found out about the abuse there, she brought us home to live in Washington DC, where I went to school at Barnard Elementary. Then sent me to live for a year with my dad in Oklahoma City. Then home to Falls Church, Virginia where she had managed to buy a house by marrying someone and divorcing him.

I went to school at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh for a semester, then came home to work in DC (I finished my degree at George Mason University 1970-72 and San Francisco State University 1983).

Things haven't gotten much more stable for me as an adult:

Rockville, Maryland -> Alexandria, Virginia -> San Francisco, California (5 different addresses) -> San Rafael, CA (3 different addresses) -> San Anselmo, CA -> Petaluma, CA -> Novato, CA -> Petaluma, CA (after 7 years, we were able to buy back the ranch we almost immediately regretted having sold) -> Philomont, VA -> Waterford, VA -> Bluemont, VA -> Lovettsville, VA.

So it looks like this will be my 29th move. There it is in black and white, the trail I was trying to piece together as I fell asleep last night after tumbling into bed after my second heavy day of packing. I mean, I've been dabbling in packing for five weeks, but now as M-Day nears (Sunday we pack the truck and Monday drive it from Bluemont to Lovettsville) we are going full bore. And every cell of my 63-year old body is screaming No! You can't do this!

I mean, if I were a normal 63 year old grandma, living a quiet life with my husband and a few visiting grandchildren, it would be one thing. But we still have four kids at home - plus two college girls whose stuff stays with us until they have homes of their own. Actually, Sophia has a whole separate set of furniture for college since she lives off-campus and that is also part of what we have to deal with since it comes home with her for the summer.

We tried something new this time - rented a POD which we will finish filling tomorrow and have dropped at our new address Saturday, thus making room for the truck in our driveway. It was one way to keep the pressure from building inside our house, which is covered with boxes and bubble wrap and butcher paper - all courtesy Craig's List and a dozen trips to buy them from those who've emerged from the other side of Moving Hell alive and well.

Which gives me hope. . . .

I am trying to get rid of everything we don't need, but finding it so difficult. I mean how ridiculous is i when my mind says, "Oh, maybe you will need/get around to using (fill in the blank)" when you know that you have moved it two or three times and never unpacked i or thought once about this oh-so-very-important artifact in between?

And now - crunched for time - I'm at the point where I'm throwing things into boxes, putting off making decisions until after we move. What sense does that make?

But what sense does any of it make? If my body weren't aching so badly to remind me otherwise, I'd say I was having an out-of-body experience as my life - as well as the entire universe - has begun to take on a surreal aspect. I feel like a teensy weensy ant scurrying toward my destination while dying from the load I'm carrying around. Pretty existential.

In fact, I think that the best thing about going to Heaven may be no longer being responsible for THINGS. Like, just me with no encumbrances. What a glorious feeling to be free of the collection of THINGS I've carefully picked to entertain/delight/reflect me. Nothing like a move to remind you the price earthly attachments exact.

No, I will not go off to be an ascetic. Unfortunately, my family needs me.

And then there's the issue of the washing machine - an integral part of my battle against chaos around here - which seems to be on its last legs, straining and refusing to thoroughly wring the excess water out of the clothes I have entrusted to its care. I spend my days running back and forth between boxes and the laundry room, where I turn the lazy machine back on. Usually this strategy - and if I don't forget to keep going back to coax it along - can get a load done in three hours. The appliance repairperson our landlord sent - a really nice guy - checked it over and said it was a mystery to him and he would consult with a more experienced colleague. That was a week ago and I haven't heard back.

Oh, and then there are the endless phone calls/arrangements. And the dread that my Internet service in the next rural area will be lousy. And the ideas scampering in my head about the things I want to write as soon as I have time.

So what am I doing here, when I should be packing more boxes? Because a communicator has to communicate. I just can't help it. I was talking to my writer friend Ann last week and she says she has the same experience: for writers, there's the story we live and the stories we tell.

And there are the friends we make along the way.

No matter how much I move, this blog is a home for me. Thanks for making it feel that way!