Tag: big move

I’ll Think About It Tomorrow

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This may be my last post for some time.

So dramatic. But it’s all such a pain in the patootey that I’m feeling dramatic. Picture me swooning, back of my hand against my forehead. Oh Ashley!

Too much? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But here’s the deal: I’m in the Burlington, Vermont airport, hoping to wing home through thunderstorms in Dulles to get to Denver at midnight. I’ll spend the night at my mother’s, hop up and drive to Laramie at 7 am. Signing closing papers on the Santa Fe house at 10am, finishing the final load of the U-Haul and driving to Denver to spend one more night there, then on to Santa Fe to take possession on Friday.

And that’s if everything goes perfectly.

The last two days have been a mad scramble of last-minute paperworks. Exchanging one chunk of money for another. My poor mother and Stepfather Dave — who owes me nothing, it should be said — have been scrambling to be our personal bridge loan. My mother has been to Kinko’s THREE times in the last two days, to send faxes for me. Let me tell you, the whole diaper changing/nursing/labor thing pales in comparison. It’s been both silly and infuriating. Selling one house and buying another on the same day is incredibly fraught. I don’t recommend it.

Eh, I wouldn’t listen to me, either.

I’d say stay tuned, but maybe you won’t be able to. The Qwest folks are scheduled to install internet for me next Wednesday. So, really, if you DON’T hear from me until Wednesday, all is well.

If things go badly… well, brace yourselves for ranting.

It’s entirely possible I’ll be spending the weekend in Denver and closing on Monday in Santa Fe. We’ll just see, won’t we?

But look: here’s our plane to Dulles, fully an hour before departure! The windows look out on a blue sky, gently lit by a declining sun. One cumulus cloud mounds in singular splendor over the mountain. Two hot air balloons have launched, one blue, one read, drifting serenely.

All is well, I’m thinking.

Stay Tuned.

TGIWhat?

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At the post office today, the woman next to me was asked how she was and she responded, “Great — it’s Friday!”

And I realized that it meant nothing to me. At least for right now.

I mean, I knew it was Friday. Mainly because we had an appointment to sign our closing papers this morning. And to take the Jeep in to have the brake rotors replaced. And because Karen and Bob were arriving in the afternoon to load the motorcycle and outdoor furniture into their horse trailer, to haul to Santa Fe for us.

Nothing party about that, so much. At least, not the day-specific kind.

When my mom went to India, she mentioned that, that every day blended into the next. There were no rush hours, no Monday mornings, no early Sunday stillness. No TGIF. Someone else remarked that that kind of timelessness is an earmark of an ancient culture. Certainly their culture transcends — or eludes — the typical Western rhythm of business.

My timelessness is more at the other end of the scale. My busyness emerges from a cycle of work that is no longer limited to particular days and hours. I work as much as I can at my career-job: I put in 40 hours this week by Thursday morning. In the evenings I pack until I can’t stay awake. This last month has been such a cycle of travel — twice for work, one of which included some vacation, once for a writing conference, which is like work, only funner, and once for house-hunting, which was kind of like a vacation that involved a lot of work.

I’ve been, literally, about 1,000 emails behind since July 2.

I haven’t written a word all month, besides this blog.

I went an entire week without putting on makeup. I know this because when I went to put some on today for our closing papers appointment, I had to unpack my cosmetics from the Tennessee trip.

Friday? Not so much.

But that this whole ”season” of my life, the big move, is almost over? Oh yes!

TGTIAM!

Ode

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There go the tornado sirens. 10 am on the first day of the month. A regular forlorn hooting that has informed my life these past 252 months, that I’ll likely never hear again.

Twenty-one years ago this month I moved to Laramie, full of loneliness and ambition. I’d left my college friends behind, a network so intimate and involved that they still feel like family. I came to Laramie for graduate school. The starkness of those early days is still vivid. Living in my little apartment with my cats. My desk in the lab with my manic/depressive Hungarian (is that redundant?) PhD advisor, the air filled with his cigarrette smoke. All the friends who’ve come and gone over the years: grad students, professors, Silver Sagers.

This morning, David and I went for a walk around Washington Park. Then went for Saturday morning Starbucks (I get to have a peppermint mocha twist on Saturdays! Sugar-free the rest of the week) and Daylight donuts (the other special Saturday treat). We drove past our old house, the one we bought in ’93 and sold five years ago. The aspen tree we planted for Father’s Day that first summer stands taller than the apartment building next door. All around it cluster smaller aspen, the ones David and Mike illegally salvaged from the dump, when Walmart discarded them after a hailstorm.

We saw two friends at the donut shop. The writer Mark Jenkins, who’s off to Tibet next week for National Geographic and taking his fabulous wife, Sue along, and one of David’s Game & Fish cronies.

I think this is how it will be — the gradual good-byes. We ran out of time for a party. But this works. Saying good-bye to each thing in the course of errands. To each person as I gather, pack and redistribute around town.

To the vultures who circle above the skylights in my writing studio, sweeping out to the valley, following the cycle of their days.

HEA

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When we last visited our heroine, Sweet Sue was tied to the railroad tracks. The train was bearing down. I stood over her, black hat cocked in a jaunty manner, saying “if you don’t give me the deed to your house…”

Well, she didn’t.

The people at Puerto Court dug in and refused our offer as too low. So we turned around and offered only $5K more for the Glorieta Road house, which is perfect and gorgeous in every way. It must be noted that Kristine Krantz, aka KAK (couldn’t resist!), picked this as the front runner. She wins a free visit to our guest room!! (Okay, okay — so does everyone. But still…)

I keep thinking about those other sellers, of the Puerto house. I feel like they made such a mistake, refusing our offer. I wish I could call them and tell them to ditch their current agent, who is letting their house deteriorate and advises them to hold out for a price *I* don’t think they’re going to get.

But what do I know?

And it’s not my deal. I’ll add that to my mantra list: It’s not my life. It’s not my relationship. It’s not my deal. Rounds it out nicely.

Special Happy Birthday to RoseMarie today. I have a little something for you, but it’s not in the mail yet…

Under Contract

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Oh yeah.

I totally buried the lead on my last post. Blogger’s privilege. Somehow, the bigger the news, the more I want to de-emphasize it. Don’t make the gods jealous and all that.

So, yes, I absolutely told you about my suitcase caroming down the escalator and miraculously killing NO toddlers and only casually mentioned selling our house.

Which we have. Under contract. Sweet words indeed.

The bad news side of our good news is that they all wanted to move in RIGHT AWAY. Being the flexible types that we are, we (read: me) TOTALLY REARRANGED our plan. And we’re leaving for Santa Fe tomorrow to house hunt. My job? The one I get paid to do? I’ll work in the car while David and my mother drive. Yes, of course she’s coming along. House-shopping and Santa Fe are at the high end of her top-ten list — it would be cruel to keep her away. Plus she’s a delight to have along. I give thanks every day that David thinks so, too. And no, I’m not just saying that because she reads my blog.

Just so you can feel sorry for me: I figure I get to spend eight nights in July at home. Isn’t that sad? My home that I’m about to sell. To Californians! At least they’re moving here to be in the UW English Department, which means they love/read/write books. This gives me a lovely sense of continuity. And they love the fish pond, so are unlikely to fill it in.

I know. I know. I shouldn’t care. Here I am, pretending that I don’t.

La la la.

Convinced?

Okay, yes, I’m punchy. See me after another week of house-hunting and a work-trip to Nashville.

Maybe Marin has a point, that not only is it not necessary to blog every day, but that it also might be a really bad idea some days.

But hey — stay tuned for more house-hunting pics! Wheee….

Gallantly Streaming

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Normally I’m not what you’d call patriotic.

You know what I mean — I’m just not into the patriotic thing. I hang a flag on 4th of July, but not really any other time. I know all the words to the Star Spangled Banner and even the other verses of America the Beautiful, but that’s more being a lyrics nerd. I’ve never felt like I should buy an American car nor do I check if products are American made. I don’t have much patience for people who reduce discussions of the US to “love it or leave it” terms.

When we planned to move to Canada, it had nothing to do with my approval or disapproval of the American government. That’s not why we were going and my feeling towards the country of my birth and citizenship had nothing to do with anything. And we didn’t change our minds for those reasons.

So it surprises me to find that I’m feeling something about keeping our money in the country.

Never mind that we really felt like the Canadians tried to take us for all we’re worth. Never mind that they acted like our money was no good and that we deserved additional credit penalties on our mortgage, just for being Americans. There’s something else.

Something that has to do with the US Customs agents saying “Welcome Home,” when we come back into the country.

Certainly setting up a US mortgage feels like beyond easy at this point.

I participated in a webinar for work today on a new project. It’s for state efforts funded by the stimulus act, which requires a certain amount of the materials used to be American. We’d be evaluating the requests for waivers from the requirements, say if the widget needed can only be obtained from Japan. The examples of what we might look for naturally lead to the ways that an applicant might slant the research to show there’s no equivalent American product, whether from laziness or a vested interest in something else.

It made me think. Who would be the person who would deliberately not buy American? Probably no one. It’s more about the change in thinking, to deliberately seek out the American equivalent, if it exists. To go to some extra pain and expense to do so.

For a while my mom was resolved to buy nothing from China. After a while, she was forced to give up. In great frustration. It simply couldn’t be done, unless she went without. I suppose she could have done so, but that wasn’t really the point. She still makes the effort.

I suppose that’s what the Big Switch comes to. We wouldn’t have made the choice deliberately to keep our money in country, but now that we are, I feel good about it. So many budget cuts around us. It feels good to spend our money into something that will, in turn, give back to us.

Welcome Home.

The Big Switch?

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Those of you who regularly read this blog know I’ve been in Santa Fe for work this last week, posting pretty pictures. This one is the last dregs of sunset from our little patio on the hill at Fort Marcy.

The other thing that’s been going on the last week is the Dealing with the Canadians. We’ve been trying to get the finances in place for the Big Move to Victoria, which is mainly about paying for the house we’ve nearly bought.

Which has been a major Pain in the Ass. Yes, this is the blog post of Many Capital Letters.

The pressure to sell our current house has been so great because the Canadians have been insisting on 35% down payment. Yes, a lot of money. This doesn’t even get us an amazing interest rate or monthly payment either, because they tack on extra points for Americans. Oh, and Americans can’t have amortizations of any longer than 25 years.
After a while, we began to feel like a particularly juicy American fish on an uncomfortable hook.
Our Victorian real estate agent has been great, but everyone else? Not so much. I started shopping around other mortgage brokers. Three never bothered to call me back. One said that, oh yes, we’d never do better than 35% down as Americans buying in Canada. Only one took the mission and he’s taken fully three weeks to not give us anything yet.
So there I was in Santa Fe, thinking how beautiful it is and how much we’ve always loved it. And talking on the phone with David about the Victoria PITA and how it just feels like the stars are not aligning for it. And I said, say, is there a good school here in Santa Fe? He looked it up. There is and it’s an Ivy League shool in the acupuncture community. Plus, it was only a few blocks away from where I was working. My colleagues and I swung by there at lunchtime. The facilities are the best of any I’d seen on the tours with David. The campus president was there, alert, attentive, produced an orientation and application packet immediately and there are openings for the Fall session.

David called and talked to him and likes this school even better than the Victoria one.

Our daughter, Lauren, the mortgage broker, looked up rates in Santa Fe and found us a stellar 10% down deal with her company.

Plus, her guy, Damion, is a mortgage broker licensed in New Mexico, so he can do the deal for us. Not only can we get a much better financial deal, they can benefit from the commission. MUCH better than feeding the Canadians their extortionate interest rates.

So this is what it feels like when the stars do start to align in your favor.
Unless the Canadians come up with a really stellar deal for us in the next few days, we’re moving to Santa Fe instead.
Which will be SO MUCH EASIER.
David and I spent a great deal of time in a school of thought that had you pursue your goals regardless of the obstacles. The greater the resistance, the more you were to screw up your will to break through. We could make Victoria happen; there’s no doubt of that. But we’ve come to believe over time that going with the flow of things can be its own reward. And when something is easy and drops in your lap, that’s something to be celebrated.
We’re feeling really good about this. After all the pressure, that’s something else to celebrate.
On the drive home, I saw a fleet of dragonflies at a rest area. They must have been hunting a hatch of some small insect. Easily three dozen enormous dragonflies filled the air over my head. It was magical and surreal. It felt like a good omen.

The Longest Day

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Yesterday was a kind of harmonic convergence of events. Summer solstice, Father’s Day and our grandson’s first birthday.

Here’s Tobiah, with his paternal grandfather, Miguel.

Normally Tobiah is quite a bit more jovial than this, but my step-daughter, Lauren, reported that he’d been cranky that day. Not everyone loves a party.

I got to stop by for a few minutes, on the drive to Santa Fe, to drop off some presents from David and me. I asked Lauren if the year had gone fast for her, too. She said it had flown by. She even looked a little dizzy, thinking about it.

A year ago, David and I were in Victoria, when Lauren’s boyfriend, Damion called us in the early morning to say Tobiah had been born. We lay there watching the morning light over the Japanese gardens at Laurel Point Inn and the Inner Harbor beyond. We’d visited acupuncture schools the day before and David had clicked with the one in Victoria. Our world had shifted, in several profound ways. Now David thought about teaching Tobiah to fish in the lovely, gentle seascape of Vancouver Island.

I admire what Lauren has accomplished. She has a challenging career and a new baby. She and Damion are learning to build their lives together. Juggling all the families can’t be easy. But Lauren cheerfully makes room for everyone who wants to be part of Tobiah’s life. It takes an openness of heart for that, along with a stern resolve.

So Happy Father’s Day to the fathers: Damion, Miguel, David. Happy First Day of Summer to us all — may we have some now, for all of us who’ve had such a cold and rainy June. Hopefully the light of the longest day shone with radiance for you.

And Happy First Birthday, little Mowgli-baby!

A Place for Our Stuff

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We began packing it all in this weekend.

As instructed. It seems there’s a minor denotative difference between packing up and packing it in, but the sense of retreat seems the same to me. And it does make a difference to begin packing ourselves up. The move seems really real now. After more than a year of planning, of applying to schools, of applying for visas, of buying houses even: filling the cardboard boxes with my stuff really brings it home.

I’ve lived in Laramie now longer than I’ve lived anywhere. Certainly longer than I’d planned to. I’ll just hit 21 years by the time we load the moving van. Long enough for anywhere, really. It’s a bigger stretch for David who’s never lived outside of Wyoming in his whole entire life. For those at home keeping score, that’s 50 years. He’ll be the first among five siblings to move out of state, too.

My moves before seemed so much simpler, first dictated by the waxing and waning of the academic cycle. Then it seemed I packed up and moved from one grad student dig to another. There was a simplicity to my life then, when I could load pretty much all of my possessions into a Honda Accord hatchback.

Moving excites the desire to return to that. As I contemplate moving each item, its relative value gets weighed against the space it takes up, the gasoline cost to transport it, the theoretical space it might occupy in the future. Right now, a lot of it seems not all that valuable.

I’ve been posting to Freecycle a lot. What a wonderful thing it is! Within an hour it’s gone. To someone who will actually use it, too. A blessing, truly.

The houses in Victoria have no storage to speak of. Our new house has a five-foot high storage space on the lowest level. I hesitate to call it a basement. Less than a basement, more than a crawl space. Our realtor enthusiastically pointed it out as a place to keep our Christmas decorations. I didn’t add, “and all the other stuff I’ve been dragging from place to place since college.”

When people ask us why the houses in Victoria don’t have basements, we waffle. David says, “because the island is a huge hunk of granite.” I repeat what our realtor said, “they just don’t.”

Maybe, really, it’s because they don’t have so much stuff.

Letting Go

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No, we haven’t sold our house yet.

Amazing how many people ask us that. On an astonishingly regular basis. I’m getting to the point where I want to say, BELIEVE ME, I will announce it to the world when we get an offer! I really feel for those women whose family and friends ask “Are you pregnant, yet?” We know you love us, support us, want only the best for us. But really, you are not helping.

At some point you’re doing everything you can and you just have to wait.

Here we are: waiting.

Today we stopped by our real estate agent’s office though. Dropped in on her after lunch. She’s so fabulous that she doesn’t care. She’s the best in town. I implicity trust in everything she’s doing.

“We just came to nag,” I tell her. “So you can tell us not to worry.”

And Donna hesitates at this point. I’m sure she’s going to tell us to worry. That she’s lost confidence. Maybe stopping in to see her wasn’t such a good idea.

“I don’t want you to think this is freaky,” she says, and hesitates.

Okay, “freaky” isn’t “you’ll never sell your house in this market.” I’m betting she’s going to suggest we bury the St. Joseph upside down in the back yard and I’m opening my mouth to tell her we already did, if only to shut my mother up.

“But there is no reason your house isn’t selling,” she says. “The gardens are gorgeous right now. When we show the house, it just shines. Everything is perfect. You should have an offer by now.”

She takes a breath.

“What I want you to do is think about letting go.”

She goes on to tell us a few stories: the woman whose house wouldn’t sell in the hottest market ever, until her dog died and she confessed relief, because she’d been sure the dog would never survive the move; another woman whose completely updated house could not be sold and who emailed or called Donna every day telling her how no one would want it and it would never sell.

“I can’t explain it,” she says, “but I’ve seen it happen, over and over.”

Donna, freaky theory or no, is likely right on. When we first put the house on the market, I wrote a blog about how much I hated it. We have loved this house. Loved, loved, loved it. (Note my dutiful use of past tense.) We knew it was our ideal house the first time we saw it. We loved every minute of living here. We wouldn’t sell it, if we weren’t moving away.

But we ARE moving away. Away to Canada, to British Columbia, to Victoria. To a beautiful new house that we’ll love living in. It’s time to let this one go. It belongs to someone else now — we just don’t know who yet.

To prove it, this weekend we’ll start seriously packing. We’ll take our favorite stuff down off the walls and box it up. I’m depersonalizing. Withdrawing myself from the lathe and plaster, from the original wood trim and leaded glass. The reflecting pond we made, with its carefully balanace ecosystem, will delight someone else. I’m trading it all in for our new life. My pound of flesh. It’s a price I’m willing to pay, a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

My life lately is all about cutting, have you noticed? Not my forte at all.

But I’m getting good at it. Let it all go. What remains is the best part.