"Rumi (the cat) has a self-possession I greatly appreciate." --Barb Richardson
The gray cat curls up in his carrier in the wheel hump (do we still call it that?) in the mid-back seat and falls asleep. A life dismantled holds him in place, a carrier, a catbox, suitcases, photographs, cowboy boots, laptops, papers and papers, jars of plum jam. Cat Stevens' The Wind plays on the car stereo.
Do the smells of these and all the other things that populated his Ballard life dissolve into a dream scrolling before him on a rain-drenched highway? He has never been farther than 5 miles from home, never spent the night away from the bed he has always slept in, the window open year round just a crack. He has no way to guess what lies ahead, and wouldn't sign up for it if he did.
The encouraging friends and cheerful movers have come, packed the paintings and the bed, the dishes , the books,--carried away the accumulation of 9 years here, and carried forward from other moves, other lives. They all came, the book club friends, the old college friends, the tango friends. They came to help send us off on this journey to a new home. We are siting for California.
"Geography is destiny," Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote. And those rolling golden hills dotted with live oaks have populated my dreams for, well forever. And the rhythm of the waves I fell asleep beside while burrowing toes into warm sand still echo as an arrhythmia, ( shkaa, shkaa, shkaa), the cardiologists can't explain...
It appears to be a short time ago I decided to sell my little Craftsman bungalow house and beloved garden (can you sell a garden? ) and move back to warmer climes after 27 years in the Northwest. The wish I had harbored for years was publicly launched just 10 weeks ago. Now that my daughter has graduated from college and is making her life in New York City, there was nothing to hold me back from launch from this swell little house. Nothing but the huge kindnesses of friends and what we've woven together here. But that is what will both remain here and go forward with me. Moving two directions at once.
I've been busily taking cuttings from the roses and plum tree, wrapping them in damp paper towels and sending them around the world to friends and family to see which new place they take root and thrive in. For now, I'm setting my sites on the Central California Coast-- still not overrun with the frantic and their cars-- after an interim stay with my parents, now 73 and 85. How many people at this age have the opportunity to revisit a home from decades past, the same but changed, and spend weeks or months with their parents? It will be getting to know them on wholly different terms. Terms? No--stations.
Barbara, my tango dancing, ex-mormon, novelist friend flew from Salt Lake City to make the trip with Rumi and me. Her unflagging spirit and energy are a vital addition to our little entourage. So, we packed, we cleaned, we hauled to Goodwill, we said goodbye and we set out. The itinerary-- to get warm, see old friends, discover new places, and find ourselves home.
