Moving

The three of us shared a bottle of wine, but the glasses had all been packed, so we had to drink out of mason jars.

A rose of Sharon in the backyard

In Boise, still grappling with my decision to rent Elizabeth House from which there was no turning back, I spent the rest of June making final preparations to move from the home where I’d raised my family and lived for 27 years

The official moving day was July 1, but I made one more trip to Salt Lake before then. My 27-year-old son showed up early on a Friday morning and helped me maneuver my teak mid-century dining table out the back door of our home, down some rocky steps, across the front of the house, and into the garage, where we loaded it upside down into my Honda Element. With the back seats out, it just fit.

As we carried it across the front lawn, I thought of the time when my son, then aged three, helped me plant tulips bulbs in the flower beds. I was pregnant at the time with his sister. Those tulips had heralded spring at our home every year since, spearing the earth with their green shoots, opening to reveal pink petals.

I didn’t mention the memory to my son because I wanted him to think I was over the heartbreak of selling the home where he grew up. I knew he wanted me to think he was over it, too. These slices to my heart happened on a regular basis during that month of moving.

But there were moments of grace that happened, too. Like the man at the U-Haul dealership who patiently helped me decide which size of truck to rent. Or the couple who managed the storage facility, welcoming me with a wave each time I brought a load of my belongings for which there wasn’t room at Elizabeth House—boxes of heirloom quilts, family photo albums, the rocking chair made by my immigrant grandfather, in which I rocked my children to sleep when they were babies.

And then there were my friends, Todd and Lisa, who told their three grown sons to cancel any plans they had on June 30. The five of them showed up, plus Lisa’s 80-year-old mother, along with my son and daughter-in-law, to load the U-Haul. Todd even drove the truck to my home, backing it expertly up the driveway.

I gave one of their sons the task of taking all the art off the walls and wrapping it in plastic. My son then went around and repaired each of the holes in the wall. My daughter-in-law boxed up the remaining books in the bookcase. Lisa and her mother packed up the crystal and glassware in the kitchen. Meanwhile, my son and daughter-in-law’s basset hound Rosie, and Todd and Lisa’s Havanese, George, were part of the crew, too. Todd orchestrated the moving, directing his sons to carry each piece of furniture into the driveway. After assembling it all, they made a plan for how to load it so everything would fit. They stacked the boxes last, angling them so my twelve-foot fiddle leaf fig could lean against them during the drive to Salt Lake and survive intact.

Moving Day helpers, George & Rosie

When the walls were bare, the kitchen mostly packed, and the truck loaded, I ordered pizza, and we all sat on our patio at a picnic table and in yard chairs that would stay at the house until it sold. Then the young people left, taking Lisa’s mom home and also the dogs, but Todd and Lisa stayed. The three of us shared a bottle of wine. The glasses had all been packed, so we drank out of mason jars.

As the sun set, we talked about random things—how fun it was to see our children together as adults, memories of old birthday parties, all the times we’d spent on that patio, eating great cooking, laughing, talking into the night. My friends kept the conversation going, sensing what a fragile moment it was. I looked around, trying to memorize the details of it, the tall and leafy Pacific Sunset maple my husband and I planted in a rain storm nine years before, the enduring yucca plant that had been there all the years we’d lived in the house, the hydrangeas not yet blooming.

The hardy yucca plant

To hold heartbreak at bay, I made myself be in the exact moment in which I was living, where my body existed in time and space. I knew there would never be another moment like it again, and I did not want to miss it. Tomorrow, my friend and colleague from work would arrive early to drive the U-Haul truck to Utah, and I’d follow in my car and say goodbye to this era of my life forever. But tonight, right now, I was here.

Todd poured the rest of the wine into our mason jars. The sun cast a glow over the backyard. I could not think of a better way to end the evening.

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Dear Reader, have you ever experienced physically moving out of one era of your life into another? Please share in the comments if you’d like, and I’ll respond.