State of Address

And so there we were. On the edge of Riverside, surrounded by naked living room walls and boxes – so many boxes – dripping sweat and storage dust all over what was a freshly mopped hard wood floor a mere few hours before. A two headed, tattooed tidal wave – my love and myself. Trying our hand in life – round two. Moving day.
I don’t know how or when we accumulated so much stuff. After living in a tiny bedroom with but one even tinier window to the outside world for two years, I’d grown numb to our minimalist lifestyle. The same t-shirts rotated throughout the weeks, this time on Monday, next time maybe a Wednesday, and then a Tuesday, just to mix things up a bit. I really don’t know. The thought lingered, tickling astounded laughter from the depths of a place I’d forgotten I had that echoed down the hallway – our hallway – and prompting a questioning glance from him.
It looks like a fucking Home Depot commercial in here, I explained, gesturing toward the mountains of branded, orange stamped cardboard.
Oh trust me, he teased, I know. I had to move it all…. He gave pause, allowing himself a moment of self-serving commendation. And by the way, that’s the last time I leave you alone to pack NINE LARGE BOXES full of books. Each one of those weighs more than I do.
And over the course of the next week, I came to agree.
Book boxes don’t slide as easily as one may think while sitting ass to floor, summoning that long ago leg muscle crafted by more than a decade of soccer and dance and cheerleading. Teeth gritted, palms planted, and toes curled between each labored thrust.
Scooting, I tell you, is hard work. But joyous, indeed.
Like Hanukkah in May – we’ve had two solid weeks of cutting through packaging tape to reveal treasures and surprises we’d both forgotten were there all along.
Daily exclamations of onmygodmyoldwalkman-myfavoritething! or hotdamnit’smyvintagecanopener-myfavoritething! and even lookshaun,it’souroldcombinationradio/toaster-myfavoritething!



 
Because when you’ve not had it in so long, that little red contraption up there that plays Sunday morning tunage while also toasting your bagel to perfection is as good as gold. It’s life, man. It’s living. And it’s making a living. Independently and together and on your own terms. Because you bought it that one time with money you made honestly, and used it for years, and though you’d never admit it out loud, said a quiet goodbye old friend, I’ll see you again soon to when things had finally stretched beyond your power to hold them together.
Unpacking is hard work. Honest engine. Just ask this guy, who arrived on day three of our move with the help of a very stubborn kitchen cart…

But I’m not complaining, because aside from more bills and a longer to-do list, all of this brings with it a many splendid thing. A place to call our own once again. A space labeled 206, where I park my car every day. A kitchen full of our things. A his and her towel hook in a master bathroom. A refrigerator, in which sits the milk we bought last night during our evening trip to Vons – in the exact same place we left it. Because even when I was little, I never did like Goldilocks and her tendency to fuck with the lives of three unsuspecting bears.
By day four, we’d fallen back into that natural routine that only two people with so much history can summon so quickly. Marley greeting me every day with a whimper and a present (usually his stuffed Willard or the tick with the missing arm – lost in a battle of tug o’ war a year ago). I hook up his harness, and we make the trek toward the mail room by the leasing office – him peeing on every shrub, lamp post, and patch of grass that strikes his fancy. And upon our return, he gobbles down his beggin’ strip while I turn the radio up and the air conditioner off, opening all seven windows to let the last hours of sunlight in. And then it’s into the kitchen to unload dishwasher clean dishes from dinner the night before. Pop open a beer or fix myself an iced tea. Throw in a load of laundry. Open another box and set to work sorting and organizing, until an hour’s passed and Marley starts dancing around the front door, announcing Shaun’s arrival with the presentation of yet another present. And then there’s dinner, a pot here and a sauce pan there – a, babe, can you hand me that salt? or do you want rice with that, or potatoes? – with our own table to sit at and the occasional pizza or Chinese food for the nights we’d rather not cook.
And in the late evening, there’s our patio, with our chairs pointed toward the west and an ash tray positioned in the middle. And we sip our tea and talk about our day while scratching Marley behind the ears. Neither one of us caring all that much that we can see the freeway less than a football field away, and convincing ourselves that the sound we hear when we stop talking and close our eyes is not a steady stream of diesel trucks and motor cars traveling anywhere between five and eighty miles an hour, but the sounds of waves crashing upon the shore of our own private beach.
It’s a stretch, I know. Freeway dirt smells nothing like salt water and sand, but I’ve always had quite the imagination.
It’s now been two weeks, and I’ve got a closet in the spare room full of six years’ worth of higher education term papers, research, and books, Christmas decorations, and a kazillion purses and bags. My bookshelves are overflowing with treasured stories of foreign lands like Yoknapatawpha and fields of rye; every time I walk past, I remember again each one. We’re down to one box of miscellaneous odds and ends that need a place in this new stage of our lives.

And every day, I open my front door to this – a portion of my collection of flea market skeleton keys and warped photographs of bittersweet childhood memories and life’s most current– his and mine.

The two pasts that, somehow, brought us together and led us here. Where we are now.
We may not have a savings account anymore. We’ll have to scrimp every week to make rent. And I don’t know how long it will be before we can afford things like internet and the good whiskey. But until then, I’ve got 986 square feet of wooden floors upon which to twirl. A couch to lay across Shaun’s lap on and watch old seasons of SoA, to melt into and crochet, or snuggle in next to a spoiled and beloved basset hound. At night we play cards in bed while listening for the ding of the dryer. And there’s no yelling coming from the other room at three o’clock in the morning.
Our furniture may be old and a few pieces hand me down, but mod podge works wonders, and my love is a magician with sand paper and power tools.

Life wasn’t built in a day. Or whatever it is they say, when they say such things.
So I’m good, guys. Nervous? Yeah. A little worried about the uncertain immedaite future? Sure. But I’ve been good. And I’m still here. Pretending at the whole adult thing a little less each day.