Monday, August 11, 2008

Our House, Is A Very Very Very Fine House...

I've always said, if you feel poor, move. The sheer volume of possessions that you'll have to pack will convince most of you that you have far too much stuff.

We've been packing for a couple of weeks now. The first week we felt like we accomplished something if we loaded two or three boxes a day. Now we're in the home stretch, and in the past several days alone we've filled at least a hundred boxes. Most of my stuff was packed weeks ago. I've always been somewhat of a minimalist, so much so that a Buddhist monk would probably look at my few meager possessions and think, That poor bastard.

My wife bought this place after her divorce, and raised two extraordinary girls in it. They're both young women now, and were well on their way to adulthood when I entered the picture seven years ago (this makes it very hard for me to take any credit at how well they turned out). The oldest is going to be a college professor, the youngest is still deciding between psychologist and anthropologist. One night, when we were still dating, the power went out. We had a full house; The Professor and her boyfriend The Artist, both 19 at the time, Indiana Jane, 15, and the two of us. Indiana Jane and I lit a few candles. As we walked around the house we both remarked at the large number of decorative candles in pretty much every room. Most of them had never been lit. Indiana Jane and The Professor convinced their mom that now was the time. When we were finished we appeared to have the only house for miles with electricity. As the warm glow of the soft candlelight cast shadows onto the front lawn, the five us us sat on the sofa and talked quietly, smiling as we occasionally looked around the room at what we had done. That's my favorite memory of this house.