LESSONS FROM THE MOVE Part Deux: Giving Stuff Away

My column at Fine Art Views on how to ease the pain of letting stuff go. Enjoy!

CRAZY TIMES

How to relocate without losing your sanity. (Actually, I don’t know how to do that.)

Moving is a bitch difficult experience.

At first, it’s kinda fun. I pick out a few things I can easily let go of, and donate them to a thrift store. Oh, look! I just helped pick-a-good-cause-that-has-thrift-shops!  That works for a few days.

Then I start packing what I call the low-hanging fruit. Extra dishes. Winter clothes. A few pictures from the walls, and some knick-knacks.

Then it gets harder. WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY DISHES?? Didn’t I purge dishes during our BIG MOVE from New Hampshire less than three years ago?? Why do I have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR vintage pitchers? (I donate one–ONE–to the aforementioned thrift shop.) Don’t get me started on the tea pots.

Then it gets really hard. There is now a couch in our living room. One couch. That’s it for sitting. We fight over who gets to lie on it to read every night.

Near the end of packing, you end up with odd stuff looking even odder. No, I am NOT giving away my trailer truck!

As the deadline draws closer, I get a little more panicky. I pack more boxes. As I unpack them at the new rental, I wonder why I packed THAT and put it in the give-away pile. As I slog yet another box of stuff to the now-overwhelmed thrift store, I guiltily pull out one or two things, and sneak them into the new place.

My attention span is shorter than the time it takes to pack one box.

And now we’re at the point where the new place is more welcoming and home-like than this place. Probably because the stuff that’s left to pack is the important stuff I don’t really want to deal with. And once I pack them, we HAVE to switch home base to the new place.

Once you pack the sugar, salt, and toothpicks, you really have to move into the new place. But the bowls of rocks and shells, and odd pots? They can wait a day or two.

As I lay awake at night, reviewing all the things I still have to do/pack/unpack/give away, I console myself:

At least we’re not moving across the country again! (We’re just moving across town.)

The new place is smaller (which means downsizing again), but that’s a good thing at this point in our lives, right? (Please reassure me on this.)

We have had a whole month to do this!  Er…maybe it would have been better to do the oh-God-we-have-to-do-this-in-3-days! thing. More painful, but we’d be done. (Ha! I’d still be looking for the box I packed with the printer toner til the end of days.)

Lest you think I’m getting off easy (in which case you are not my friend), add this to the pile:

I took our 2006 Toyota Scion in to get an oil change.

That was nine days ago.

Every day has added $400 to the bill. Because the worn bushings finally tore. And when they replaced them, they found an oil leak in the transmission. And when they took it to the transmission people, the t-people found a crack in the case. And when they pulled that, they discovered we need a new transmission.

Our oil change people lent us a loaner car, a sedan that didn’t hold many boxes. Like, maybe two. The gas tank is on the opposite side from the Scion, and it unlocks in the opposite direction.

After four days, we got bumped up to an SUV, which holds a LOT of boxes. But the gas tank is on the opposite side of the sedan, and it unlocks in the opposite way of the sedan.

Thank you, Hahn Auto, for the loan of an SUV that holds a lotta stuff.

At the same time, the front door lock on the new house jammed. After two different people tried to fix it, the second, a locksmith, said the whole lock and handle set needs to be replaced. (Jon had to climb over the fence to let us in from the back yard.)

So I have two sets of different house keys, which ALSO unlock in the opposite directions; have driven three different cars in the last nine days and three different sets of car keys, with different ways of unlocking and gas tanks all over the place; cats who keep trying to trick us into packing them into boxes so they don’t get left behind; two dogs who are alternately bored out of their minds for lack of long walks, and anxiety over moving again….

And yesterday I set up for a new show at Graton Gallery in Graton, CA, a wonderful gallery I’m so excited to be in. They showed amazing patience when I had to make three trips. One to get the jewelry cases I thought I’d forgotten. And another to bring the cases that a friend found IN THE ALLEY WAY where my studio is. Because I’d set them down to talk to a friend, and forgot to pick them back up again. (Thank you, James!)

Meanwhile, my South A Street studio is full of everything that didn’t fit in my new, smaller home studio (which is also stuffed) and I’m feeling a lit-tul bit overwhelmed with it all.

The bright side?

Friends with trucks! Thank you, James, Cory, and West Coast Greg Thompson!

A nice new neighborhood! We’ll be in the charming (Luther) Burbank Gardens neighborhood. Where almost every single resident there has already stopped by to welcome us to the neighborhood.

We have two hyoooge, beautiful porches! More opportunities for large gatherings of friends and neighbors.

We’re even closer to my SOFA studio, and it’s easier than ever to get outta town.

We have a few more years to figure out our next steps, without worrying about the house being sold out from under us. Good friends own the house, but they won’t be moving up here for a few more years. This works out to everyone’s advantage!

I’ve also discovered that a mixed drink in the evening does wonders for easing my busy, buzzy brain these days. (Don’t worry, I’m not normally much of a drinker. Desperate times call for desperate measures.)

So if you see me, and I seem confused about how to gas up the car, or strangely reluctant to pick up the restaurant tab, or my key ring seems to baffle me, or you here me muttering about “pitchers” or tea pots, or wondering where the paper towels are, please have mercy.

And when the dust settles (from dusting all the knick knacks that never got dusted during our 30 months here on Boyce Street), come on by and see us!

Er…bring bourbon. Jim Beam’s Red Stage will do just fine.

LESSONS FROM THE MOVE Part Deux: Getting Smaller

This links to my Fine Art Views column for today, with all the good things about moving.

Enjoy!