Today was glorious. I awoke, thinking it must be quite late, to 70 degrees at eight in the morning. This is Maine, where it should still be miserable in early April. The birds were singing all day and the cat cried miserably until I finally got her collar on and opened the door wide. Unlike their normal territorial selves, the chipmunks and red and grey squirrels all hung about in the same area without squabbling, and the cat made no attempt to terrorize them. All seemed right with the natural world. And here I was, scrambling to pack, pack, pack, while trying not to think about how I'll miss the garden and the returning spring birds, whom I think of as seasonal friends.
Sure, I'll have nature aplenty at a beautiful park two blocks from my new abode, but it's not the same thing as seeing the plants one has planted bloom, or know that the nesting rose breasted nuthatches are the same ones that graced my backyard last year and the year before that.
But, I can't think about that, or at least, I can't think about it too long.
One life ends and another one begins. As the rooms become messy with boxes and the shelves empty, I realize I am not coming back. Every day, I've been doing what needs to be done to move without thinking about what I'm doing all that much. There's so much to do, I haven't time to dwell, nor do I care to. I made a decision, and I've put one foot in front of the other and kept marching ahead. Living life one hour at a time, quite literally, for this packing and sifting has stressed me terribly, so I pack for an hour, stop, read, play a dumb game on the computer, and go back at it, no thinking, just doing, and then I hear the birds singing, and stop again, and realize, "Oh my, I am really moving away."
Last night was a gorgeous evening, too, and as i drove back from my knitting group (for the last time), the sun was low in the sky, the clouds layered deep and mysterious. The tops of the fields in the distance looked as if they were ablaze. I drove twenty minutes without seeing another car. The road was mine alone, and I loved driving, and this, too, was something I thought, oh how i'd miss, something I'd come to loathe, having to drive everywhere for everything.
When DIck asked me to remove Miko from the leash I wondered how she (and he) would adjust to my not doing it in the future, and I missed her, even though she was right at my feet.
Yeah, breaking up is hard to do. I'm breaking up with everything I know. I don't believe it, even as I'm doing it. I don't believe it even as I rip another piece of duct tape off the roll and close up another box. Then I think of all those boxes that will be in Brooklyn and how I'll be trying to figure out what to cull by the end of next week. There's just too much for a studio apartment What will I have to give up? I'm giving up a lot as it is.
Yes, I'm gaining plenty. I know that how I"m changing my life is the right thing for me to do now, even if I fall flat on my face. Might I? Sure, though I'm not planning on it.
Another thing I'm not thinking about.
I really am not thinking about much except "how am I going to get all this done?!" And then I find out the movers might make me wait another week. I guess that contract I signed wasn't worth much.
Truth is, I'd be happy not to move on Monday. I'm not ready. But another week? By then the daffodils will be in full bloom and those grosbeaks might be back. By then, it'll be time to birdwatch. By then I'll be so long past doing anything but being in transition that I'll wonder how to get back to doing anything but being in transition.
Yes, i'm worrying. It finally happened. I'm worrying! Isn't this post somewhat hysterical in tone? I'm sitting here on my sofa but I feel as if I"m standing in a field with my arms outstretched, screaming like a harpy, hair and eyes wild, in torn clothes, and one flip-flop on my left foot. I don't even own flip-flops.
Maybe I need some sleep. Tomorrow, more packing.
I need to sit and make something, but it's all packed.
Painting note: Andre Brouillet "Une Leçon Clinique à la Salpêtrière" c.1865 Charcot demonstrates a case of "hysteria."
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