New Tricks for Old Dogs

You know what they say: big hands...big feet; big feet...big shoes. Something like that. Maybe they also say new house, new car. Well, maybe they don't; I think I'm the one who said that, but who cares? After all the time I have spent trying to find my own voice, I might as well listen to it. 

So I did, and there you have it: new house new car. And new beginnings, at least according to the artsy wall hanging given to me by friends earlier this week. Sounds like a plan. Nevertheless, as what seemed like an inordinate amount of time between signing the contract to sell the old house and officially closing the deal winds down, I feel woefully not ready to begin anew. My body aches from weeks of sporadic packing and irrational bursts of heavy lifting, but I remain overwhelmed by mental lists of tasks as yet undone and unanticipated piles of stuff that continue to reveal themselves no matter how hard I work to clear everything out. I have begun breaking small promises I made to myself only weeks ago. Maybe I'll rent a storage locker for a few months after all. Maybe I don't need to toss all the things I haven't used in years. After all, I might need those crystal goblets one day. Or maybe I'll get the urge to hop on the recumbent exercise bike, now that it's no longer buried under mountains of old clothing.

It's difficult to imagine starting anew when I can't seem to wrap up the old. The past clings desperately to every surface of my existence, refusing to loosen its grip. Progress is slow; it's like trying to clean up a raw egg that's cracked on the counter. Eventually you win the battle, but the viscous mess puts up a pretty good fight. 

My new friend Rodrigo, along with a revolving posse of relatives and friends, has been helping me unload some of the big ticket items. I busy myself moving small things while they carry out old cribs, tables, chairs, beds; furniture that is no longer of any use to me, some that I have forgotten I ever had. Still, I feel wistful, and take comfort in the shrinking but conspicuous clusters of useless items that still litter the floor, the shelves, the closets. I noticed Rodrigo's wife staring at a set of six thick glasses and a matching pitcher I had purchased years ago somewhere near Guatalajara. I remember staring at it in the market, thinking I just had to have it. I have never sipped from the glasses, had long ago removed the set from a prominent spot on my kitchen counter. Once, I killed a fly and I had to scoop it out of the pitcher. Rodrigo's wife looked as if she had struck gold as she carefully carried her newly acquired set of glassware to her car. I'm sure I'll get over it, but today I kind of miss it. I even considered calling her to tell her about the dead fly.  

Though the new house is filled with the promise of brand new beginnings, it is also quickly becoming filled with the things that got away from Rodrigo and the occasional charity pickups, the things I just can't let go. Nobody's perfect, and there's no such thing as a totally clean slate. The new car seems filled with promise as well; there's no more hideous death rattle when I start it up, and there's no more ragtop blindspot to make lane changes and backing out of parking spaces death defying. The blind spots that await as I move forward, well, neither the new car or the new house filled with old things will help with those. 

Manny, my blind dog, was not thrilled about the extra effort he had to exert to hoist himself up into the higher seat of our new ride. He gave me that look, the one that says Really? First the new house and now this? But, as he always does, he gave his hind quarters a zesty shake and he persevered, resigned to blanketing the unfamiliar upholstery in his smell and his hair. 

He sniffed. I sniffled. "Yes, really, Manny." Big hands, big feet, big shoes, big gloves. New house. New car. New blind spots. New beginnings. That's life. No worries, though. The cookie jar is coming with us. 

Head in the Clouds

When clouds are pasted onto the horizon in the still dim light of early dawn, they can look like mountains. As I drove eastward this morning toward the rented townhouse that I have been slowly filling with the stuff I can live without temporarily but cannot leave behind -- a motley collection of coffee mugs, crystal goblets, uncomfortable shoes, cocktail dresses -- I imagined that I was visiting my vacation home. A small chalet, maybe, tucked away from reality on the ledge of a rocky slope.

In a few short weeks, the rented townhouse will be my reality, no longer just a haven where I can escape for a brief visit. The house I have lived in for almost twenty years will be emptied of my stuff and filled with somebody else's. A young child whose name I do not know will sleep where my children once slept, unfamiliar aromas will permeate the kitchen, another woman's jeans will be shrinking in the dryer. The worn molding around the front door will become just something else to repair; it will no longer be a fond reminder of a beloved dog unable to contain his excitement when the UPS guy visits, or a squirrel scurries across the lawn, or when a leaf blows by. Eventually, the insidious puggle hairs that defy vacuuming and settle onto every inch of fabric will dissipate, and all evidence of our life there will be erased.

It's odd. What I love most about the townhouse, my vacation home, is that it is a clean slate. Yet, almost every moment I spend there is spent examining spaces and figuring out where and how my stuff will fit. I travel with measuring tape, I envision still unfurnished rooms configured in ways that will seem familiar. I envision puggle hairs floating through the air, scratched walls, carpet stains with known origins. I imagine faded Pepsi stains on the ceiling from the time my son and his friend decided to see what happens when you boil a soda can, V-8 stains in the bathroom from the time I tried to bathe a skunked dog in the sink. I wonder how long it will take for my blind dog to figure out the path to my bed each night, how I will explain the new bedding that still smells fresh.

Technically, my old house, the one from which I am slowly erasing myself, is not the house where I grew up. I lived in several homes before I landed there, in that house more spacious than any I had ever known, in a suburb I had never intended to live in, living a suburban life I had never really imagined living. In many ways, though, it is the house where I grew up. It is where my family took shape, it is where I started to figure out who I am. It is a place filled with wonderful memories and a place where I learned many lessons, some of them painful, most of them useful. There was life before that house, and I hope there will be much life after that house, but the meat of my story happened there. It is changing hands, and it will soon be spruced up and coated in new paint, but it will always, in some fundamental way, be mine.

My townhouse in the mountains will likely be temporary, as fleeting as the backdrop of jagged cloud formations in the distance this morning. Maybe it will become more than just a pile of brick and mortar to me, maybe it won't. There are no mountains, but there is plenty of new terrain.