Twenty-five years after moving in, I’m moving out — in the center of a summer blast furnace, the virus, endless police brutality and lynching’s right before our very eyes in broad daylight. It feels like the right time, a long overdue time. Shedding old things and old stories, trying to pay attention to new things and new stories out of necessity, and out of my own embedded complicity. It’s unsettling and unnerving. It’s shocking.
I’ve been pondering this move for years, but always found reasons not to, like I don’t have the time, or I have too many unfinished projects, or where am I going to find something else this affordable? Sometimes when I postpone taking action and avoid making overdue decisions, they’re made for me, whether I’m ready or not. Change and transitions are always a challenge. I know lots of people who embrace both of those things and flourish — who don’t hesitate to move from one home to another home, or even from one state to another state every few years — significant ‘into the unknown’ moves — and even career changes every couple of years, for years on end. It’s almost unfathomable. My daughter is the opposite of me in this regard too — even though she appreciates the nest, she’s mostly a mover and an adapter, she’s a nomad. I feel like a different species sometimes. In my work, I’m willing to be uncomfortable and in uncharted territory, but with my home, my family and my lifestyle, I’m not as willing. I want a solid anchor to a place and my patterns, like this space has been for decades.
Unfortunately, my crap is an avalanche — mountains of paper, job files, specs, paper, estimates, correspondence, typical design debris, drawers full of press sheets from 1995 through last year, paper samples two decades old, cables and hard drives, art supplies like paint, brushes, and fluids, raw canvas, paper, stretchers, computers, scanners, books, paper, project samples, office supplies, postcards I never sent, memos I never sent, copies of letters I wish I hadn’t sent, old resentments triggered by long lost meeting notes from deranged editors, copies of first emails that turned into lifelong friendships, paper, an old bag of holiday nuts, mops, cleaning supplies, in-process paintings and drawings, book research, bundles of wheat, hardware, software, manuals, tools, paper, furniture and dust. I’ve rented this space longer than I lived in my parents’ home growing-up — longer than my daughter is old. It holds lots of good memories, hard memories, some dark hazy years, and tenuous transitions — sifting through physical and emotional debris to determine what’s saved, what’s shredded, what’s recycled, and what I want to cradle in my hands again like some timeless relic and then reminisce about it quietly and endlessly in the weeks and months ahead — like a collection of handmade cards and affirming notes my wife made for me. Sometimes I find another drawing by my daughter or an illustrated letter from when she was four years old, asking me to come home so we can be together as a family, including our cat, as soon as possible. Sometimes I couldn’t come home because of a challenging deadline, and sometimes I didn’t because I was lost and grieving, and didn’t want her to feel the full force of it.
Almost everything needs to be touched and reviewed. Occasionally I can grab an entire box of old, client book manuscripts from decades ago, or ancient financial records and toss them without review, but that’s the exception. If shoveling it all out was an option, or setting it all on fire without thinking was possible, I’d have done it years ago. If I go that route though, I’ll miss all of the sweet nuggets that make it rewarding, that provide inspiration and hope like a treasure hunt. So I wade through it for weeks and when I eventually look-up from what I’m sorting through in my lap like I have blinders on, through my scowl and see what’s left, I want to give-up and call building management and tell them I need another month, I’ll pay, but tell the new tenant I just can’t finish on time. Then call our family doctor for a psychotherapist referral, someone who can provide a deal on a bundle of appointments because I have a lot to unpack. Those things won’t make any of it go away though, so I forged ahead. There’s no shortcut.
“The best way out is always through.” Robert Frost
“If you get rid of the demons and the other disturbing things, if you get rid of them, then the angels fly off too.” Joni Mitchell
© C. Davidson
Songs :: The Perfect Boy by The Cure, Side Tracked by Dave Mason, and Proudest Monkey by Dave Matthews Band