The TrueTalk Blog: Moving

February 21, 2012

Moving

When's the last time you moved?

No, I don't mean went for a run. I mean moved.

Changed your address? Acquired a new domicile?

Me, it'd been 17 years, until last Friday.

Then...poof...off we went, leaving the Connecticut house where we'd spent the longest time ever in one spot and heading for...wait for it...New Jersey!

Yes, New Jersey.

That may not sound like much to you, but to me, it came as quite a shock. One place on Earth I never thought I'd live?

New Jersey.

Anyway, the thing is, moving is disruptive.

Duh! Sounds redundant, right?

But it really is disruptive.

The disruption begins with Act I: The Preparation.

Act I is where you take everything you own, for which you have found perfectly good spots over the years, and put them in boxes.

For the record, your things do not like Act I. They like where they've been; it's their home. They're comfortable there. At peace.

One of the reasons your things do not like Act I is that many of them know they are going to be...how to put this kindly...de-acquired. Gifted. Donated. Returned to the great cycle of things at which our culture so expertly excels. Many will simply disappear...thrown "away" (as William McDonough says, "wherever that is".)

Act II is, if anything, even more disruptive. It's called, The Trucking.

The Trucking is particularly intense. It's the part where many very large men swoop down on the things you've boxed in Act I and carry them away.

Every box receives a sticker (where the hell are all those RFID tags we keep hearing about?) and is dutifully chronicled on a manifest (each prosaically called "box") so that it can be accounted for in Act III.

I'm only marginally reassured.

The Trucking also involves wrapping every stick of furniture you own in distinctive blankets and a special kind of brown tape. Listening to the sound of miles of the tape being unrolled throughout your house must be what it's like for a farmer to hear his crops devoured by a grotesque species of insects. I cannot reproduce the sound in letters, but it begins with "ghakhk," contains many more consonants and goes on for hours.

Act II always ends with an intensely dramatic moment: will everything fit?

It usually does, but not before great anxiety.

And we now find ourselves at Intermission.

This story has an Intermission because the New Jersey place to which the bounty of Act II will be delivered is not yet habitable.

At least, not by us.

That won't happen for a few days yet.

Which means that practically every object we possess currently sits in a warehouse.

In The Bronx.

Awaiting the big moment of Act III.

The Reunion.

And for that, dear reader, you will have to wait...

We'll be sure to let you know how it all turns out.