All moved

My feet still hurt from all the traipsing back and forth, but I am moved in. A friend from the Sierra Club helped me on Saturday. It took two trips using her truck and trailer. As a thank you, I gave her all my cactus and aloe plants, some of them quite huge and a couple I had been growing for five years. Just no place for them at the apartment.

The cable guy came about 2pm, while the place still looked like a scene from that TV show “Hoarders.” He got the television and Internet running, although I couldn’t use either till I connected all the wiring, finished reassembling my desk and found a place to sit down. That took nearly six hours.

In the meantime, the stove came (works fine) and the maintenance guy replaced the faulty fire alarm that kept beeping every few minutes (battery failure). By 3pm, the refrigerator hadn’t arrived. I waited till 4pm to call the store and the woman who answered told me the delivery truck had left hours ago and should have arrived by now. She would call them and confirm.

By 5pm, it still hadn’t arrived, so I called again and talked to a guy who confirmed my address and said they had stopped by twice and left a doorhanger because nobody was home. I checked the door. No hanger. He said he’d call the delivery guys again.

They finally arrived about 6pm. It turned out that they had the right address on the books at the office but had transferred my old address (the one I was moving from) into their electronic system; the guys had tried to deliver to an empty house! At least they made it before any food spoiled. The cooler I used still had ice in the bottom.

I spent all day Sunday arranging things. I eventually found the shower curtains so I could get all the sweat and grime washed off. Although I still have about three boxes of documents and two boxes of clothes to sort through and put away, plus all the wall decorations to arrange, the place doesn’t look half bad. It already feels a bit like home because I have all my things with me…not like moving into a furnished place.

I still need to saw some wood to make shelves. I’m going to convert the entryway closet into a pantry/storage area. There’s not nearly enough cupboard space. Ah well, a nice weekend project awaits me.

The emotional aspects of the move hit me Sunday afternoon when I finally got my CDs sorted out and selected something to play while I unboxed things. I just picked a CD at random. It was “Voices from the Sky” by Dadawa, a Chinese woman with a voice somewhat like Enya’s but more forceful. I had bought it after seeing her perform live in Hong Kong at a black tie affair I was attending for Time Magazine’s 50th anniversary in Asia.

Tears came to my eyes and I sobbed for a bit, something I haven’t done for a long while. It was a mixture of strong feelings, some sad, but mostly happy, remembering what a good and plentiful life I’ve lived. Now, a new chapter is being. New adventures lie ahead. And although my “new” apartment looks like a college student’s room (my bicycle is parked in the bedroom), this will be the base from which I venture out and return for rest, refuge, and reflection each day.

All moved. Very moved.