Meet the Neighbors

Sugar and I are still trying to find our routine for walking. So far either she has been desperate (she has been so worked up over the move that she is all off kilter) or too nervous to take care of business. We have a little quad by the front door that extends the length of the property. There are sidewalks and grass and small trees - a lovely place to meander.

Tonight as we walk about, I am struck by how many of the apartments are dark. Not a light to be seen. No "porch lights." No windows lighted up. Every place is so dark it feels as if the place is deserted. I know it can't be because there are cars in the parking lots. But do these people all go to bed at 9 pm? Or just sit in the dark? I have seen a few people out and about - mostly young women walking their dogs. There is one family with children. Overall though, it is as if I am living in a ghost town.

I am sure I will meet the neighbors soon. The verandas all look so inviting with their welcome mats and slates inviting visitors. They have flags and plants and comfy chairs. One would think this a porch community, not an unoccupied territory! Well, Sugar finally relaxes enough to take care of business, and I am too tired to be concerned about meeting neighbors. Tonight I will just sink into my easy chair and budge with each rise of energy to tuck one more little thing into its new place. I'll meet the neighbors tomorrow.

Chaos

Sigh. I don't function well when things around me are in an uproar. I worked so hard to get my new place under control. Perhaps I am, after all, a control freak. My bathroom, kitchen, laundry room and bedroom are mostly settled. Really, it is the living room become Drew's room that is spilling over into the dining room and hallway. You can hardly find a spot to put your foot down!

Of course, the new wrinkle is the lack of a storage area. So I now find tucked in my super giant sized closet the spare tire, the Christmas decorations, the camping gear and various other non-personal items. Normally, these things would go in the front hall closet, but that is where Drew's things must reside, and it is already too small to accommodate his stuff. So I tuck it carefully in my area. It fits OK - the closet is well shelved and there is lots of room beneath my hanging clothes for the plastic bins.

Several living room items like the tray tables are now living in my bedroom as well. I had not realized that Drew is a "keeper of unnecessary stuff" - he has not yet learned to keep it light and be free of the burden of possession. Unlike home owners, apartment dwellers must, out of self defense, not hang on to things 'just in case.' I wish Drew could pack rat all his desired boxes and bits and pieces to his heart's content. But he will not have that luxury unless he manages to purchase a house and stay put there for decades like my grandparents Appleby. I can still smell the heat and dry wood and dust of the attic in the summer when we got to explore the castoffs of an older generation. They were lucky to have a place to keep their history. Even for them though, comes a time when you have no choice but to let go. You can't take it with you, as the saying goes.

One of my colleagues has mentioned that his first retirement task is to purge his garage, shed, basement, attic and house of thirty years of collecting stuff. Of hanging on to something just in case. Of not wanting to discard something that still has some life in it. I understand both the reason a person would end up in such a state and the daunting task he will face when the time comes. I watched my parents break down my grandparents home of 60 years. I watched my siblings break down my parent's home of 30 years. Neither was a pretty picture.

But that is neither here nor there. At the moment, my task is a bit more paring. This is a good step for me and the size of the new place a help in weeding things down to a more manageable state of affairs. After all, how much stuff does one person need, really? A few clothes, a few dishes, a comfy chair and bed, a small table - and by most of the world's standards, owning such I am considered tremendously wealthy and blessed. I refuse to purchase any more storage areas or enabling cabinetry. I will shed what I cannot accommodate and do so with joy. I just wish Drew wasn't so sad about tossing empty packages and boxes that his stuff came in.

Cleaning Up Afterwards

Yikes! You think you are keeping things clean and well cared for, but once you have moved everything out, you realize how many little pockets of dirt have to be taken care of. I am becoming more committed to an annual spring cleaning - and in fact had planned to do just that this year before I thought of moving. When I was in high school, I often was hired by local women, most of them older and either single or widowed, to assist with the spring cleaning rituals.

Well I remember washing windows with newspaper and vinegar, taking all the dishes from cupboards and scrubbing out the insides, examining for breaks and chips and tossing the bad ones while washing and reshelving the good ones. We moved all the furniture to the centers of the rooms and thoroughly scrubbed the exterior walls, removing pictures and cleaning them carefully, chasing away spiders and brushing down cobwebs, all the while the windows thrown wide open to let the fresh spring air chase the winter doldrums and germs from the premises.

The women tied kerchiefs around their heads to keep the dust and dirt from their hair, but didn't hesitate a moment to clamber up on chairs to reach the top shelves and send a shower of dust on my head from the top of kitchen cabinets. Stairs were particularly challenging. Their houses usually had a front and back set, and most of them had removable runners or step coverings that had to be carefully taken up and washed while the wood steps were massaged with oil soap to rejuvenate the dried out wood. While none of my employers had coal heat, their furnaces managed to sap the strength of all the woodwork, and I spent hours polishing and rubbing and feeding all kinds of wood in every imaginable place.

I have lived in my apartment for four years and not done a thorough spring cleaning even once. Shame on me. I blame it on my various health challenges, but I am sure I could have hired someone to come and help. Seeing the result of four years of neglect helps me understand the importance of this little task. Next spring I hope to do just that. Meanwhile, today, we scrub and clean and vacuum and mop until it is past noon. But I feel as if we have done what needed to be done and our efforts will pass muster. The only place I cheated was in replacing the drip pans under the stove burners. I don't believe any amount of scrubbing could have saved them. But we are done, the keys are turned in, and we can focus on settling in. Something tells me this is the last move I will undertake for some long time. I hope so. I would like to be still for a bit.