Move It, Move It

We survived.

The movers came, and they stayed ten hours, and at the end of it all, Mr. Muscato and I sat, each with a traumatized terrier on lap, and looked around us at the void left by the departure of something on the order of twelve dozen boxes, parcels, and lumpily wrapped bits and pieces.  The furniture so graciously provided by the good people of Golden Handcuffs Consulting Amalgamated International, left behind, looked more than ever woebegone, cupboards gawping emptily and the worn places on the sofas slightly embarrassed at their threadbare state, forlorn.

So now we're living, very temporarily, in a house almost eerily devoid of possessions, where what still exists comes almost entirely in pairs - two sheets, two towels, two pillows, even just two mugs rattling about in the great vacant stretch of kitchen counter, waiting for the very last of our last coffee to go into the machine tomorrow morning.

It might feel a little more like the calm at the eye of the whirlwind if there weren't still so many damn things to get finished - sorting out all our travel papers, closing out the last of the office bureaucracy, sending off valedictory messages, dealing with banks and telephones and even, this evening, in a final gesture of resignation to the cruelty of an unkind and indifferent creation, a quick trip to the dentist for one last cleaning. Apparently I have gums of almost juvenile vitality, which I will try to keep in mind as an asset for the next, trying stages of this great adventure.