Boxes and boxes

We are moving. Officially. Into a new house. Just renting it. Nothing serious, but it’s a big step up in our, up until now, apartment living. We are going to have a yard and a balcony on the second floor and 3 bedrooms, a real attic and basement, a clothesline, a push mower and two old bikes left in the garage that the landlord said we could have. I’m claiming the pink one with flat tires. I’ll make her shine, pump her up like full breasts, she’ll be riding pretty.

Did I mention we’ll have a yard! Now I can kill plants in the real dirt and not just potted dirt. I hope they don’t run screaming when they see me. But I’m excited because my girlfriend gave me new gardening tools and a gorgeous pottery potter for my birthday and I can’t wait to use them. Just one more month and we are on our way to becoming real life adults. On our way.

In the meantime, I’ve removed the boxes that I’ve saved from previous moves  from the basement and now they’re glaring at me. God how I hate this. Putting books into dry cardboard boxes is exhausting to me. It’s a never-ending process, packing. I look around our apartment – photographs and bills, plants food, appliances, paper scraps from old art projects, cat hair, curtains and it all has to come down. And I have to do it. It’s such a big task to unsettle a life. I’ve kept magazines that I’ve never looked at again until now. An InStyle home edition I remember wanting to keep because the yellow tables looked fantastic and the decorating ideas were crafty – create a headboard without having to buy one, turn picture frames into artistic expressions. But then you move in and you settle down and picture frames become expressions of you and your life. you make your home, not from pictures in a magazine, but from living.

I have grand ideas of riffling through the entire apartment and flinging the things I don’t use out the window – I once threw a couch of my balcony – with the help of a friend and it was fantastic. But I’m sick of the clutter, the mess of life. I want to be simple again. Start over clean and fresh in a new space I may or may not cleanse with burning sage (I’ve been told that gets rid of ill feelings, bad omens, evil juju).

So here’s to packing. May it take me forever. May I get sidetracked looking at old pictures and riffling through old journals. May I get rid of things I don’t want and keep the things I do. May I swiftly and honorably pack up my life again – to start not so very far away this time.