Now what?

Looks like Gray took the camera, or I would share here a photo of the conditions under which I am currently living. I'll use this image of the living room from last week as a reference. It hasn't gotten any better. The kitchen, if anything, is worse. All the appliances are pulled out into the center of the room and the place is half painted. Gray cut in before he left, but that was it. Looking at it makes me want to rush outside and take long deep breaths.

So today, after the ritual of morning coffee, I must choose my next undertaking. The rest of Grayson's room needs packing. My clothes need packing. The bathroom as well. But the kitchen needs painting, as does the stairwell, the crack over the fireplace and the second floor hallway. These I think of as Gray's jobs, but I do believe he had hoped I would at least finish the kitchen over the weekend. Can't decide which will make me feel more irritated: Not doing it and dealing with his frustration with me that it didn't get done while he was gone... or doing it and feeling irritated that I'm not getting the other things done. Tough call.

Looks like more gorgeous weather today. Fall at last. The dogs are loving it. I'm feeling guilty for making them move into an apartment soon. Though Flower will enjoy having rugs to lie on. She always seeks out a soft spot to lie down and soon she'll be able to lie down anywhere. Well, in the few places where there won't be furniture in that tiny pad. It may be a case of tiptoe through the endtables. Wall to wall dog.

I'm getting nostalgic about the house now. It represents so much to me. The achievement of a certain American Dream: the big beautiful house in a nice neighborhood. Even the creaking of the old stairs twists my heart these days. The "Red Room" is red no more. The old carpet was taken up and bland beige carpet put down. But I'm reminded, by its emptiness and smell of fresh carpet, of the week we moved in. Grayson loved that room. Mostly, I think because of the carpet, which he loved to crawl around on. He had been playing in there and then came upstairs and was wandering around, asking me "Mom, where's that other room? That red room?" The house seemed so big to him he was lost in it.

Here's the view from our bed to the east window in the morning. I love the silhouette of the Virginia creeper moving across the curtain. And Skeezix will sit up there and watch it. I'll miss that window. And the Virginia creeper. And the sycamore tree we planted the year we moved in. And my garden.

It will be easier, I tell myself. Easier when we have moved out and the hopes and memories of this house are not all around us every day. There will be other houses. Other vines and trees and gardens. Another life. Coming soon. Just around the corner.

Elizabeth Bishop said it best, I guess...(Poem snatched courtesy Poets.org.

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.