I have moved as many times in my life as years I am alive. Not true, but it feels that way. Every two years from the time I was born until I married Will at 36.
Then the moving slowed down. Four years, then one year, then four years, then nine years. What is it about moving? Why do people move? We move for jobs, we move for people, we move for ourselves. We move to run toward, we move to run away. We move, which changes something about our physical environment. We move, which changes something about ourselves.
The American tendency toward transience isn’t confined to long-distance movement either. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the average person in the United States moves residences more than 11 times in his or her lifetime.
This latest move was spawned by the re-build of our house. Will’s house. The little yellow one (now blue) on a hill on a hill in Seattle. That is in a great location but is too small with no transition spaces or storage places. I have always hated that house, but with its impending demise, I’m starting to feel sentimental toward it. I wrote about it on Instagram:
This is most likely the last night we will spend in this house. Ever. The house Will bought 21 years ago before we met. The house that was yellow, not blue. The house that knew neither me nor Seth nor Michaela nor Oslo nor Mies nor Bria nor Friedrich yet. The house that had never hosted my parties nor held my tears nor muffled my cries nor projected my laughs nor refereed my fights. The house that hadn’t yet seen Will through business school nor me through design school nor Seth and Michaela through high school. The house that hadn’t yet held the chair that held Oslo when he took his last breath. The house that hadn’t yet born the marks of Mies’s teeth when he missed us when we left. The house that hadn’t yet hosted a thousand of our meals, a million of our sighs. But what is a house if not a container for living? And loving and dying and taking and giving.
– November 27, 2021
The wrecking machines come next week and, understandably, I have not written much since Thanksgiving. I will observe from the sidewalk across the street as they tear it down. Despite years of dreaming of this moment, I won’t be surprised if I cry.
If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.
– Paulo Coehlo
We now live in Pioneer Square, a part of Seattle where many without houses congregate, shuffling about during the day, wailing in agony at night. A neighborhood as far economically from Queen Anne as we could get within the city limits because Queen Anne is a bubble of money and entitlement, a la-la land that we wanted to get out of while we had the chance. But it is not lost on me that the house I’m about to tear down because it’s not well-designed enough, windowed enough, high enough, good enough for me is a house that many others would be thrilled to possess. It is not lost on me the immorality of what I am about to do. For it is. Immoral. It is immoral to tear down a perfectly good house when so many need but don’t have one. I am moving forward, but I wish we would have explored moving the house instead of tearing it down. I wish there were government programs that made recycling houses easier. Government programs that allocated pieces of property somewhere to place houses like mine for someone. Someone less fortunate than me.
Considering.
Things That Nourished My Writing: November 22-December 13.
FOOD
Pizza. When moving, pizza is the perfect food.
When I asked Will what food nourished him during our move, he said: Firefly Kraut!
LITERARY
Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss by Hope Edelman
MUSIC
It’s Goin’ Down by Yung Joc Feat. Blasting when I dropped stuff off at Goodwill this weekend.
The quintessential Christmas album.
PEOPLE
My new neighbors in our new neighborhood, Pioneer Square.
The ever creative and inspirational Jordan Carlson and Sarah Hurt, founders of the King Street Makers Market.