Moving Day

Today is the first day of Anna's spring quarter and she is starting it off in a place of her own.  For the rest of the year--eleven whole weeks!-- she will have no roommates.  She will answer to no one.  She will come and go and do just as she pleases, (hopefully in a way that will please her mother) for she will be the sole keeper of her very own 400 square-foot studio apartment.  Which shouldn't be that hard, really.  But in case you're like me, and not very good at math, let me just say that 400 square feet is pretty. darn. small.  Like three big steps for Dave.  But to Anna, I'm sure it feels like a castle, she its queen.  

I've never been a big fan of moving households.  It's a huge task, requiring back-breaking work, cleaning, scrubbing, navigating tight corners with furniture that never wants to fit.  But this was not the case last Monday.  After loading our truck, 

Ready to go

and filling Anna's car to its very small capacity, we headed north with all of her worldly possessions, and one of our couches.  After a drive that took a little longer than usual, due to the all-too-frequent stops we made to re-tuck our flapping tarp, we arrived in Bellingham under sunny, blue skies and got to work.  

When you have very few possessions, however, and live in a very small castle, the work of moving is over very quickly.  I think Dave and I unloaded said couch, her desk, her bed and a few small tables (more like nightstands really) and tucked them neatly into their new home before Anna was finished hanging up her clothes.  (I realize what this says about Anna's closet).  While she finished this task, I made a list of things she still needed from Fred Meyer, and began emptying the remaining boxes and finding homes for their contents.  Mostly I tried to keep busy.  Which is very difficult in a space as small as hers.  So, basically, I just drove her crazy.  If she set out a candle, I moved it.  Just an inch or so, to be symmetrical, to look better.   Then she moved it back and told me to stop.  So when she asked if we could go to the store,  I replied with a very enthusiastic "let's go!"

At Fred Meyer we bought a few more necessities: waste baskets, a shower curtain, a bath mat, and a candle to mask the smell of garlic and kimchi. (The former tenant, of six years, cooked a lot of Asian food)  When I directed our cart to the grocery aisles, however, she said she didn't need too much food.  So I just bought her usuals: yogurt, bread, the cereal neither she or her dad can live without, and some fruit.  She promised she'd make another food run later.  After she settled in.  A food run that would include vegetables.  But I didn't hold my breath.  Anna may have moved out.  She may be relishing in her new found freedom, coming and going at her leisure, but she has yet to discover the joy of cooking, even if she is starving.

Since her dad and I didn't want to eat yogurt for lunch, though, we stopped downtown and grabbed a bite.  At the restaurant, I sat in the sun with Jack at my feet,  just waiting for a crumb to fall his way,

and my husband and my grown daughter laughing and smiling at me (probably making fun of me) from across the table. 

You can see how hard Anna is trying to contain her
laughter.  I have that effect on her.  Not so much on Dave.   

And I thought, we did it.  We made this big girl.  We made this big grown-up-girl.  This big grown-up-girl, who now has her own apartment.  

We did a good job!

And I picked up my menu, pushed back my sunglasses and pretended to look for something to eat.  

With full bellies, we took Anna home.  To her home.  Her new home, that on the inside, looks amazingly similar to our home.  There sits the couch where, until very recently, we all sat eating popcorn and watching movies.  On top of Anna's old nightstand rests the lamp I bought at Target when we were just building our house.  The lamp I never really liked.  And at the far end of the room, next to her bed, sits the desk Anna and Dave painted black a few summers ago, because the natural pine color looked too babyish for her liking.  

And now here it all sits, looking perfect in its new home.  I hope this furniture does more for Anna, though, than just look good. I hope these familiar faces bring her comfort when she returns home at the end of the day. I hope that soft green blanket, tucked into the corner of that old brown couch, will keep her warm on a chilly spring night.  I hope that when she reaches to turn off her lamp at night, she'll look at that black desk and think I wonder what my dad's doing right now?  I hope that when she looks at the  little wooden Valentine I gave her a few weeks ago she realizes the truth behind its words: LOVE YOU MORE.  

And then, all too soon, our job was done.  Anna was ready to rearrange everything I carefully put away for her.  To make her place her own.  To settle in.  So we hugged her tight, kissed her goodbye, sternly told her to respect her neighbors (in other words keep the noise down on Friday nights), got in the truck and started our drive home.  

For most of the drive, I thought of all the things I should have told her:  

make sure your door and windows are all locked when you go to bed, 

blow out the candles, (even if it still smells like teriyaki)

make sure you turn off the oven, the stove burners, 

and don't turn on the heater unless it's freezing. (I'm trying to teach her the value of a little suffering)  

Dave must have known exactly what I was thinking, for after a long, quiet spell, he grabbed my hand and said, "she'll be fine."

I just nodded and looked out the window.

Then, to my surprise, when we got near the U-District,  he exited the freeway.  When I looked at him, he said, "we need to go to Dick's."

"But I'm still full from lunch!"

"Me too," he said, "but we still need to go."

So we sat in the parking lot, eating our Dick's deluxes, Jack begging from the back seat.  By the time we were done, we both felt better (though very full)  and were ready to go home.  

After I tucked Nora Jane into bed that night, I paused in Anna's doorway.  Her bedroom, so empty, it looks like she never lived there.  Her bed, and a wall shelf filled with trinkets not worth making the trip, the only remaining items.  But she hasn't really lived here the last two years.  She's just been a visitor; coming home on school vacations or when her fridge is empty. This is the way it's supposed to go though.  Each trip home bringing her closer to that final goodbye. 

I turned off the light, closed her door, and went back into Nora Jane's room.  I climbed the ladder to her bed, crawled up next to her, and THANKED GOD for making me smart enough to have my children ten years apart.