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The clock is ticking. We move the Monday after next. Linda and I no longer talk in weeks, but in days - as in, "Max has five more days left of day care." I've filled out the change of address card. It's almost time to cancel cable and order it for the new place. None of this is foreign to me; I've moved many, many times. Since high school graduation, I've never lived in the same place longer than we've lived here: 3 years, 9 months. For a long time I moved less than every two years. I've moved across town, across the state, across America, and across the Atlantic Ocean. But those were moves to places like Boston, Amsterdam, Long Beach, Zürich, and New York. I can't remember last time I moved somewhere that didn't have sidewalks.
Until I was 33 years-old, I made all those moves alone. Five years ago I began to make them with Linda. Four years ago we added two now very large cats (Lucy on the left, Tommy on the right). This move will take our 21 month-old son, Max, from the only home he's ever known.
And the Monday after next when we leave Salem, Massachusetts for Pomfret, Connecticut we'll bring the ashes of our still born son, Leo.
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This move - in so many unanticipated ways - is the most substantive I've ever made. It's true that it's a move of practicality, but it's also a move of conviction and principles. And right now, specifically because we unexpectedly lost Leo in July, it's also a move that will forever mark the beginning of a new era in our lives. I know that losing Leo has changed me, changed us; we just don't know how much. As this life chapter ends somberly, it does however feel auspicious that our next chapter will feature less traffic and roads and green pastures, thick woods, and rocky streams (but with the same number of Dunkin' Donuts).
A series of events in each of our lives (which I also believe are integrally, intricately, and invisibly linked to events in yours) have conspired to bring us to this moment in time. And at this time we're to see if we can really lead the simpler life we say we want. It's time to put our address where our mouths are. Linda and I have talked about moving to country Connecticut for as long as we've been married. At times we'd pretend there were other fates. Up until a just a few months ago, we'd joke and ask each other, "Where do you want to live when you grow up?"
I recently heard a Ted Kennedy quote about the Presidency. Kennedy said something like, "I don't care that I'm not the President. I just care that somebody else is." Linda and I don't care that someone else is living in Italy, Vermont, Northern California, or New York City. We just care that we can't live there, too. But because we can't live everywhere, Connecticut here we come.
Starting tomorrow we're taking a couple days off - from packing, writing, and our concrete and brick condo. We've been invited to go down to The Cape and with all that's happened lately, all that's going on right now, and all that's yet to pass, it just seems like good mental medicine.
I've been reading a bit about presence lately. Being present means not being in the past. It means not being in the future. Now is really all you ever have. We all have a lot to think about, but it's sad how little of it is dedicated to the now. Sometimes when I'm running and I'm tired and I think about how far I've run and how many miles I still have to run, I repeat a little mantra, the timing of which matches my footfalls.
"There is nothing in this moment that is not right."
Stay tuned.
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The Chronicles will continue in regular installments, as will other Ring Writes essays. Though I've been posting almost daily, the frequency will drops off just slightly for a few weeks while we move and get settled.
