Here!

Dearly Beloveds.  It’s been a while.  Are you there?  I am here (what is Here, anyway?  It’s just There without a “T”).

It's Just There Without a T

This post marks the end of the longest lapse

this blog has suffered since I renamed it a year and a half ago.  Actually,  I don’t know that the blog literally suffered; it is, after all, only as sentient as a trifling aggregation of ones and ciphers  can be, strung invisibly together in the netherland betwixt Time and Space. And if you managed to make  sense of that last sentence…no, wait, if you even bothered to read all the way through that last sentence,  you must have really, really missed me.  I’ve missed you too.   But.  While I’ve missed you, dearly beloveds, I am still ok, it turns out.  Ok and present.   Call out the roll and I’ll pipe up:  “Here!”

You might ask where I’ve been?  And what  I’ve been up to?  If you were actually Here, in person (rather than There, anonymously online),  I would grab your hands and waltz you into my miniscule living room, plunk you down on my rapidly-becoming-shabby couch, grab us a couple of banana muffins, and tell you.  You would not be able to shut me up.    But (sadly) we aren’t  Here together; you’re reading this from a safe and austere distance.  I sit on my declining couch alone with my laptop.  At least fundamentally educated  about blog decorum  and prudence, I will edit.

(Thankfully I’m a woman and impossibilities lie well within my purview.  Plus, I know about bullets.  And synopsii.   Also I can make up words.)

Okay, I don’t know how to do bullets.  And I hate editing my own words.  But I can write lists.

Where I’ve Been

A) During my blog lapse, I studied (in their natural habitat) realtors .  Also home buyers.  Informed by experience and observation, my understanding of the realty world became profound, my opinions more pungent.  I would love to share; I have an awful lot to say.  But not now.  I ‘m editing, after all.

2) Also in the last three months, as winter waned and spring sprung, I sewed a bit.  Sometimes with a friend (thanks for the inspirational visit, Steph).  Most of my own projects were a bust, but one, a stretchy black velvet dress designed and sewn entirely by me, became necessarily metaphorical.  If only for  me.  A landmark in a bittersweet, uncertain era.   I call it my Madame X dress.   I wore it on Valentine’s Day.

madame x

madame X3)  Now, it is spring, when my thoughts usually become consumed by things horticultural and floral, but I have no idea whether my garden is in sync with the rest of the greening world or not, because ….WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!  (you noticed the foreshadowing in A?).  The garden went with it.  It is no longer mine.  Some of it has already been covered by concrete…the new owners must have experienced some consternation at the former vintage style carriage path (where a narrow swath of grass lies neatly between two concrete tire paths).  And though I enthusiastically offered,  the new mistress of the property (we’re calling it The Lake House, now that it’s a figment of our imaginative past) hasn’t called yet for me to help prune her lavender, or dispel the mystery of her seedlings (are they weeds?  or baby penstomens, malvas, lavender, salvia….?).   I’m thinking she may never.  Perhaps that’s best…at least for me.  Lest I look back a little too longingly.  And turn to salt.

The Lakehouse in Lavender

D) Also (and this would be obvious and almost not worth mentioning except it was so Epic), WE MOVED.  Into a rented townhouse, presumably so we could build another house on a lot we bought with almost all the money we made on the Lakehouse sale.  Which land purchase also happened during the last three months.  The rental is tiny, roughly 1/3 the Lakehouse in size.  But cosy.

E)  I really, really dislike moving.  I would say hate, but hate is a bitter word,  so I won’t.  Lest it catch me and I wander into frostbitten tangents or tangled deeps.  But I will emphasize again how seriously and emphatically I don’t like moving.   It’s stressful.  Unnerving.  Packing, unpacking, new routines, the unknown, adapting and regrouping…. neighborhood friends too far away to see on a whim…the necessity of endless driving to get kids to school and lessons and other familiar territories.  Trying to muster up the courage to introduce them (and myself) into the unknown.

But.  For the sake of streamlined conversation, I’ll just address packing here.   Establishing hierarchies between the negligible, the necessary, and the apocalyptically priceless.  Getting lost in detail.  What to store?  What to take?  Why do we even have so much stuff?  The deceptively easy first few days of packing,  where I’m lulled into believing that it’s therapeutic, a perfect opportunity to de-junk.  Which innocuous beginning feeds into a never ending flood of unclassifiable but un-relinquishable detritus , where I’m forced to admit we’re all hoarders, each and every one of us.   Exhaustive and exhausting crazy making.  Triggering within my soul a manic fixation on monasteries, nunneries…asylums.  I envisioned living possession-less and naked in a quiet warm place who knows where.  New Guinea?  A Pacific Isle?  Or the Northwest.  Except I’d miss my children, who would probably be permanently scarred if they had to live with a naked me.   Frank might not mind, though he’d probably mourn the mystery that Madame X dresses lend.  But I digress.

5)  Frank has had four cold sores in less than eight weeks.  Cold sores, for him, are sure signs of deep stress.  The sort of stress he experiences when he loses a job.  Or proposes marriage.  Meanwhile, my fingernails have become even groovier.  Literally.  The ridges running vertically from cuticle to tip split out sometimes, like old barn wood.  This is also a sign of stress.  Or incurable disease.  Or both.

Conclusion:

And yet (Miraculously), the kids seem content.  Ezra (who just learned that he will be attending a new high school next year, thanks to his parents’ choice to sell their comfortable lovely home and build another smaller one a few miles away) likes that we’re forced to breathe the same air  as we stack ourselves on the one couch that fits our rental, just three feet behind the kitchen table.  Which is generous of him, considering that we also shared a vicious strain of the flu these last few weeks.  He equates our close proximity to a more heightened emotional closeness…and I think he’s right.

Looking Forward, from Here to There

We sold The Lakehouse and moved into a tiny space so we could build another house with another name…one that would hold less detritus and cost less cold sores.  This was the reason for our madness, I keep reminding myself.  And we are on it.  Proof:

Z)  I’ve drawn up a house plan (something else I worked on during the lapse).  Simple, classic yet modern, smallish yet psychologically spacious.  Cross my fingers blow fairydust hold my breath beautiful.  I’ve given my dream child (with Frank’s input and careful computer plotting–no small doorways or tiny closets) to the engineers, who’ll make it legal and logical.   We get to preview the preliminary tomorrow.  And then we wait a few more weeks to begin, as we pursue permits, estimates, materials (lately, I’m fantasizing about a revamped antique range).  Hoping that we don’t use all our savings on gas  as we run kids to and from and to and from and to and from.  And, dearly beloveds,  I’m eager to tell you about it all…the bright future and the wanky present.

Farmhouse in Lavender

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Deb Hrabik June 5, 2016, 6:59 pm

    Ah ! What a bright spot on my facebook feed. I loved hearing about your time away.
    Your way with words always brings a smile!
    Deb

    • Lynaea August 8, 2016, 1:40 pm

      Thank you Deb.

  • Steph June 5, 2016, 10:46 am

    You have a blog?!
    How I love a good Lynaea fix!
    So – have you built your new house? Have you moved, yet again?
    I too hate moving! I too want a new, smaller, more efficient home, but I lack your artistic and design skills so alas I will likely be stuck in this big old, clumsy house for eternity. (I really hope not!)

    • Lynaea August 8, 2016, 1:46 pm

      I assume this is my friend Steph from my girlhood days in Prosser. Because you sound like her…generous warm and kind. Love you Steph! Sorry this reply is so belated–yeah, I do have a blog but I abandoned it for a bit while we built the house. Another house. Three houses in the last 15-ish years. It’s lovely and mostly finished but it was also harrowing and turned out to be not quite as economical a venture as we’d hoped…in the end, I’m housed out. Glad it’s finished, grateful it turned out well. Harboring daylilies and fruit trees in planters and boxes while we move dirt around for a yard. It didn’t occur to me that someone might read and comment while I was out—and then, it was you! Thank you!

  • Shari November 15, 2014, 12:50 am

    I obviously was feeling Lynaea deprived so I went searching and found this remarkably accurate portrayal of moving-I must have missed it when it was current since we were also in the midst of our move. I need an update though! Miss you.

  • Andie May 19, 2014, 12:30 pm

    Love ya! Love hearing from you… whether that’s here or there or anywhere.

  • Nancy Wilson May 6, 2014, 7:54 am

    Lynaea I love that I have to look up words in order to comprehend your meaning. I am trying to improve my vocabulary! You are my teacher. I love reading your thoughts. sounds to me like this is the last move. No more moving stress. True it is a good time to de-junk. as a child it was an adventure, new place new friends and possible hidden treasures. (we did not have the luxury of moving into a new house. They were often very old with attics that held antiques. We did not know their value at the time…they were probably not valuable to anyone then, else why they were in the mysterious attic? But they told stories to Jaye and I and we were excited about our treasures.
    Now as a Mother I realize how stressful all of those moves must have been to my own Mother. I can now forgo all the dusty treasures and stay in my quiet, little world here on the mountain…..
    Love you. Hope the new house goes up fast and life settles down quickly. Your Mother

    • Lynaea May 8, 2014, 10:00 pm

      Thank you Mom. I wish you could have kept some of those treasures you found in the attics of your childhood. Glass doorknobs, maybe? Remember the glass doorknobs you and dad took off the doors in Sutherland? They were my treasure… but I was a child and had no idea how to hold onto precious things past the moment either.
      Love you! Thank you for muddling through my obscure words. I look them up too. (=

  • Tabetha May 1, 2014, 3:56 pm

    Oh I’ve missed you!!! So glad to know you are all safe and sound, albeit in smaller living conditions. I’ve moved a lot over the course of my 44 years and have passionately vowed never again. How exciting about the house-to-be! I hope you’ll have time to share the journey from idea to dwelling– such a cool prospect. Hugs to all!
    Tabetha recently posted…Quiet in the Closet!My Profile

    • Lynaea May 4, 2014, 2:10 pm

      I’ve missed you too Taby. It helps that I’ve allowed myself the luxury of occasional peeks at your posts. So glad that you’re still there too!