We started our grand migration away from Portland in May of 2002 and before we reach the second anniversary of what seemed to be a permanent decision we will be in Cambridge looking for a place to live.
I have essentially been in the middle of packing and unpacking for two years now, and it will not end until later this summer.
I feel burdened by these possessions, yet when I make a decision to rid our lives of a whole category (say, of stuffed animals) I get caught up in nostalgia. The League of Animals helped both of the children feel better in our temporary accommodation; how can I consign them to the thrift boxes?
Looking through my journal I realized that other than wrestling with boxes and working on the new anthology I haven’t really been in town much since we moved here. It seems like my suitcase is never unpacked; certainly that is true for Byron.
He is off to meetings in Portland and Olympia the rest of this week, then to DC, and then to Germany twice before we go to Cambridge next month. He will be so busy during these trips he won’t even have time to see the friends in the various cities.
If I had known that we would only be here for eighteen months I would have made an effort to see the people who will not visit us overseas. I definitely would have visited my grandmother more often.
Perhaps life on another continent will be less encumbered with material goods and responsibilities and I can have a regular sort of existence.
Though somehow I doubt it.