ON THE MOVE

By the time I post this and people are reading this, I will be wrapping up my final fun summer misadventure on the road.  At the beginning of the summer, I said to myself, "Self, you should finally finish getting your house in order and getting yourself ready to start looking into downsizing!"  To be honest, I've been downsizing a lot over the last year and a half, and I have been so efficient at it that during the gas crisis, my basement was clear enough for an entire work crew to invade and still have room to move around.

The rest of the house ... needs some work.

But, summer arrived, and instead of putting time into the house, I started on a series of travels, mostly solo, to see and do and listen and feel and photograph and experience.  And I am loving every last possible second that I can wring out of August.  I tell Self (and Self agrees with me) that I can organize later, in the autumn, in the winter.  I can continue looking for a smaller place in the spring.  After all, the townhouse next door isn't quite ready; how soon will the landlords really need me out?

Those of you who have followed my years of blogging can testify, though, that nothing for me ever goes the way it's supposed to go.  Oh, sure, I have had the most awesome summer in years.  It has been a fabulous time!  I didn't get as far as I wanted (no long-distance trek to Pennsylvania or North Carolina), but I certainly went farther than I thought I would in June.

And then ... a text arrives randomly on my phone:  "You need to see this apartment."

Oh, no.  I'm not ready to move.  Not yet.  Next spring.  I've ignored this house all summer.  I'm disorganized.  I ... I ... I ... I text back.  "Sure.  Let me look."

Self says I should stay put for now.  I honestly don't know why I'm doing this crazy thing.  There are terrible, massive, tornado-spawning storms happening all day, and I'm not sure I'll make it between storm fronts to even see the place.  The landlord tried to call me in the middle of a nearby lightning strike, and my phone misses the call.  So many, many things seem to be trying to prevent me from getting to the place and taking the tour.

Well, I am not inside that apartment two feet when I declare to Self, "Shut up, Self.  I'm moving."  And, just like that, regardless of the semi-Brady Bunch kitchen set up (I'll pretend to be Alice every time I cook in the wall-mounted stove), I make my moves to be the best candidate for the apartment.  It's a cool old place with a curved staircase leading to two bedrooms upstairs, a decorative fireplace that used to work at one time, and small chandeliers in strange places.  It has outdoor space in the front on a porch and in the back with a small yard.  It has plenty of off-street parking, and it's closer to town than I already am, which is ridiculously close.

Best of all, I don't have to shovel out my car.  That's right; the parking lot gets plowed after snowstorms.  I don't know what I will do without endless shoveling to get in and out of my driveway that's on the receiving end of all of the snowdrifts on the street.  I don't know what I'll do without raking the constant flow of whirlygigs and leaves from the neighbor's trees, or seeing my car damaged by all the limbs that fall or the worms that poop.

It's going to be hard to leave the place I've called home for fifteen years and the neighborhood in which I've lived for twenty five years.  But kids, I'm on the move in a few weeks, a different kind of moving than I've been doing all summer, moving that will also be settling down for a while (I hope).

A bunch of small adventures to one big huge one this fall.  Stay tuned.  Self and I are on the road again.  It's been a while, but we're up to the challenge.