What stays and what goes

Forgive my lack of blog updates. The sad fact is that – despite being profoundly life changing experience – moving makes for dull copy. "Put things into boxes." "Took things out." is hardly riveting storytelling. Not that any of my life qualifies in that category, but at least I should leave out the really tedious bits.

The move was much more grueling than I expected. I think I was lulled into a false sense of simplicity by the move from the house into the apartment these seven months ago. Then, all I took was what I needed for the next six months. The rest was packed and stored, but there was none of that random leftover stuff that makes moving such a nightmare. What do you do with the flyswatter? the random pieces of toys separated from their fellows? The single earring, the key you can't remember what unlocks? All of that was still left to do at the house, and G had packed almost nothing. When I went over to get the appliances and my things out of the basement, there were open, water-rotted boxes of christmas decorations, random tools, supplies and garden implements, old stuff Grayson had used as a toddler... all still scattered unpacked and unorganized in the basement. Plus, G had used some of the boxes I had unpacked from the apartment to collect some of his stuff, but had not removed my old labels or re-labelled them for himself, so it was impossible to tell without opening some of the boxes whether or not they were even mine.

All this plus the plain, unavoidable heartbreak of the house itself.

I keep telling myself that when the house sale is final, when we sign the papers and walk away from that brick white elephant on 20th street, some new window will open up in my soul and I'll be free. I think some part of me really believes it. When the house is gone and all the boxes are unpacked and I get paid again, I can wash the past eight months out of my hair and stride forth, as clean and bright and full of promise as moonlight in a martini.

The closing on the house is an ongoing saga of stupidity and red tape. Last Thursday we couldn't close because they hadn't finished the roof work. Then last Friday we couldn't close because the loan company, having not apparently bothered to look at the structural engineer's report heretofore, suddenly looked at it and decided that the piers he had recommended had to be completed before we could close. Yesterday we couldn't close because the foundation crew found concrete steps under the existing wooden deck and were delayed by having to cut through them to do the piers, AND because G hadn't rebuilt the back steps to said deck because HE's out of money, too. Today they couldn't close because when they started digging under the steps to start building piers... guess what they found?

Yup. Piers.

So then they had to get a second pier company to come out and evaluate it. God knows why. And then the inspector to come out and say... I dunno, something like ... "yep, those'r piers." And now we're hoping to close on Monday.

Meanwhile, thank god, I believe I've made my last journey to the home I once named "Brickheart" because I believed it to be an unassailable fortress of love and security - the embodiment of all I believed my marriage and my life to be. Every time I have had to go back I felt the tightness in my chest, like the thing had grown roots into my heart that had to be pulled out every time I went into it. Each time I just shoved back the memories, rolled up my sleeves and got the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The last trip was with my Dad. G has decided to "foster" the gas grill with me for the next 6 months, since he has no place for it and no use for it while he's in his apartment. I needed my dad to come along with his truck to help move it to Norman, and while I was there I picked up the last of the last of the leftovers: the plants off the front porch, the garden hoses, a wheelbarrow...

When we pulled up there was a pile of rotting cardboard boxes shoved out on the driveway next to the fence. Mostly junk or old Christmas ornaments in boxes that had gotten wet in the basement and rotted through. But sticking out of this pile of cardboard were two bright-colored frames: the molas I'd been wondering about for more than 3 years. These are genuine Guatemalan molas bought for my family by my uncle when I was no more than a baby. For years they hung in our house, and as a kid I loved them for their bright colors and exotic flavor. I took them with me when I moved out, and kept them on the walls in my rental house on 40th street until G moved in and announced that he did not like them. So they went into storage. First in the garage at the house on 40th street, and then I didn't know where. I hadn't seen them in any of the boxes from that move. I just had to believe that they were packed up somewhere. I hadn't seen them in four years.

And now here they were, tossed out with the trash. Like me. Like our marriage and our family. Something beautiful, made with love and cherished over years.... thrown out like so much garbage by the man I believed I would spend the rest of my life with.

That was it. That was the first time I let myself cry at the old house. I pulled those molas out of the trash, set them gently into my dad's truck, put my hands on my knees and sobbed.

He threw them away. Just threw them away.

I pulled myself together and rummaged through the pile of boxes. I also found a matted original photograph given to me by the photographer Ted Orland many years ago... water damaged beyond redemption. I threw it out.

Before we left for the last time, I walked out to the back of the yard and stood over Willie's grave, recently churned over by the backhoes used to replace the neighbor's water main. I told him goodbye. I looked over the yard, glanced into the garden. Grieved. Thank god I never have to look at it again. I rolled up the garden hose, tucked a sprinkler under my arm and walked away. I hope the new owners will be able to break the curse and find love and happiness in that house. It's a good house. It deserves to be filled with love and to shelter a happy family. I hope the new owners can accomplish what I could not.

Today I'm working to settle into my own home. I spent the cool hours of the morning rooting the clover out of the front flower beds and putting in some flowers. I never realized what a pain in the ass clover is! I felt bad about digging it up, because there is such a shortage of bees, and we should give them every opportunity we can to survive. But damn! It's as bad as bermuda grass! My fingers will be cramped claws for days from grasping and ripping, grasping and ripping.

I suppose I could stretch and turn that into a metaphor for the rough, painful clean-up of my life I'm attempting these days. Out with the old and in with the new and all that.

Or not.