Big changes are happening at my house. My husband found work
in Ohio, which means we are preparing to leave Tennessee to move north within
the next couple of months. I am choosing to think of it as an adventure. It is
certainly a chance to visit a new area of the world I have not yet seen.
For now, however, we are in that peculiar stage of moving
where we technically still live in our house but most of our belongings do not.
They are packed in cardboard boxes and piled high in the garage, presumably
discussing among themselves which box contains the one item I will desperately
need tomorrow. (I knew I shouldn’t have packed all my notebooks.)
Over the past several weeks, I have sorted, boxed, sold a
few items on Marketplace, scrubbed, dusted, and mopped every inch of the house
to get it ready to sell. I have cleaned places that never saw daylight until
now. Moving is an enormous, arduous, expensive, unrewarding job—one that seems
to create new tasks for every one completed. Because of this, my writing was
put on hold while my husband and I concentrated on preparing the house.
Now that nearly everything we own is boxed and mostly waiting for the house to sell, I have finally started writing again. My office is empty excepting a desk, chair, and mini-fridge, so every little sound echoes off the bare walls. Even the tapping of my keyboard resounds extra loudly.
Honestly, as eerily as the echoes mix with the periodic hissing of the air-conditioner, I should be writing a ghost story.
It is strange for me to sit in an empty room with bare walls.
I am used to being immersed in enchanting, sentimental objects—paintings,
books, statues, collectibles, knick-knacks—that feed my imagination. While
creating fictional worlds, my real world is completely dismantled and packed
away. It feels like living between chapters. Tennessee is the chapter coming to
a close while Ohio is the chapter waiting to begin a new story. Right now, I am
stuck in an awkward space between the two—surrounded by boxes, cleaning
supplies, and every disposable paper product a person needs to function throughout
a day.
I am both excited and sad about this move, although there is
still plenty to do before the actual day arrives. For now, I just pray that the
right buyer comes along soon. And while my husband and I wait, I shall be in my
echoing office writing again... and trying not to imagine every creak in this
mostly-empty house as a ghost enquiring when the next chapter will be finished.
