Lucky Woman

Below me I can hear the noise of the carpenters banging away as they finish sheet-rocking my basement. From my window I can hear birdsong and the river lapping at our shore. At last, we are ensconced in our new house.

Moving itself was a nightmare, with an unproductive estate sale, followed by days of purging and packing, and then the desperate search over Facebook Marketplace for new homes that could take in all that I could not keep. I gave most everything I had to let go of to Goodwill, The Red Cross and the SPCA, and then just to anyone willing to put something into their car or truck and drive off with it. I couldn’t bear to junk my down-filled sofa in the dump. 

At the last minute, the floors in the new house, which were being replaced—not refinished—were not ready in time for the move, as lumber is in short supply post-Covid. And so we have had to move in two stages: one for the upper level where the bedrooms are, which is only having its carpeting redone; and then, a month from now, one for the lower level where there is a dining room, living room, family room, my office and a guest bedroom to be filled with furniture, all of it now waiting in storage. This means we will endure the moving process twice. Wasn’t it bad enough that the second of the two moving days we’ve already been through morphed into ten hours of constant downpour? 

As I said, a nightmare: all  of it made even worse because we were downsizing by a forty percent. As Brad turned seventy and I hit sixty-eight, we decided our house had too many empty rooms that only reminded us of everyone who hadn’t visited—and probably never would. Family only came once in a great while and it just didn’t seem worth keeping up a huge house for the two of us. 

And so we arrived at the inevitable downsize. We found a house that was about forty percent smaller and then pared things back, but I discovered on the first day I began unpacking that we hadn’t weeded out enough. There I was, trying to cram too much stuff  into ever shrinking spaces; in the end, I had to be realistic and part with even more of it despite the fact that I thought I was done with losing things. The question I now put to myself was simpler: not, do I want to get rid of this, but instead, do I really need to keep it?

All my friends happily inform me that I definitely don’t need a lot of it, but somehow this is not all that comforting to me. It’s hard to let go of things you’ve had for innumerable years, even if you use them only rarely—like the Christmas china, or my wedding crystal. I love taking all of this out at holiday time, polishing up the silver, and creating not only a big family dinner but often ones with friends as well. Why must getting older mean giving things up?

While racheting things down turns out to be no fun at all, upsizing is fun. As you age and must downsize, your family grows conversely; as sons and daughters marry, they acquire innumerable in-laws and relatives, and then sweep all of these new people into your life by extension. The most important, most joyful, expansion occurs when the grandchildren make an appearance.  My Manhattan kids visited with us for the weekend before the movers came (what timing!) and we were treated to the bumps and shenanigans of an almost four year old and his one year old brother who never walks but always runs.

So right now I’m wedged in between upsizing and downsizing. The upsizing with my kids is an obvious positive score, and I take comfort in the sunsets that stretch red and gold across the water off our deck, even as I pack up for Goodwill a set of delicate (and expensive) café latte glasses that I have never once used.

Up and down. Isn’t that what life is all about? From my temporary office in a second floor bedroom, (where my computer sits atop a piece of plywood balanced on two metal filing cabinets, as we wait for my desk to arrive), I look down on the water once again as I bring this letter to a close. Across the way, the osprey on her stick-lined perch feeds her chicks and I find some peace, even though many more boxes await my utility knife. What a lucky woman I am.

Yours,