We’re doing it again. Moving. From woodland with its glorious silver coyote that runs creekside each morning. Back to concrete and steel. The photo here, which we printed to make a card for a nephew at Christmas, captures nearly perfectly what we see from the crest of a favorite street.
We are a little bit Penn Station. From. To. Through. Me, editor to the marrow, always looking for a way to lighten, tighten our lives. J., forever seeking, literally and metaphorically, the music of a place.
We are thrilled with the challenge of curating the loft space with a view we will borrow every day to create the expansiveness we’ll leave behind. Experience and its cost are measured by the square inch there; the higher the higher.
Which child or family member or friend will dangle feet in saltwater at the top of the world of it? What would it be like to write from the catering kitchen? What pieces of history in blown glass, collectibles and shelf-upon-shelf of golf lore will J. keep with him to keep his peace? How many landscapes can I squirrel there to keep from burying my farmer/grower’s heart?
I’ve awakened early to map it, or, if I am honest, to run the next step of decision and activity nearer. From armfuls of things we might hold over from this season to solid measurement of the things that would, must, meter out as interesting, practical and comfortable in the circumference of a clamshell.
We moved the circus dog’s plush bed out of sight for a home showing. She was unmoored.
This is the main thing, isn’t it: What moors us? Beyond the answers we all reach for first, because you and I are made for love and relationship, what does our soul need to see, hear, taste, touch and feel? I’ve probably recounted for you once before my friend Mel’s observation that the best things in life are not owned; they are found.
Whether or not the return to our favorite upscale grocery store, a skip down the street, comes with an extra city tax or how far the streetcar goes now or how quickly it will take for us to regain our downtown spidey-sense are just codicil questions. Behind them, more important than them: what can we do in this place, in another new season of wanderlust, to thrive, in love and relationship, yes, and in work, play, service and discovery? Can we be wunderkinds, German for “wonder” and “child,” even at this age? Not in the prodigious sense of the word, but in an upon-waking delight that grabs whole fistfuls of the sky and air and opportunity? My money’s on yes.
Meanwhile, we’ve struck the sweetest of deals. When our kids need the escape of a honeymoon suite we’ll trade spaces and imaginations: boutique weekend in the city, theirs; time, ours, country miles away, operating front loaders in sandpiles, visiting lions and tigers and bears, staging sleepovers in a Barbie high-rise.
