Moving

I was going to post on Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, and I will soon, but I read Emily’s (aka the Queen o’ Memes) meme about moving, and I had to jump in. I am, you see, an expert.

1. What was your most memorable moving experience? In August of 1995 I moved from California to the Bronx. I had packed up my books, computer, and a few other things I would need for grad school and shipped them through UPS. I flew into JFK on an overnight flight, arriving at 6 in the morning. Although I was shipping a lot of things, I still needed to have things to keep me going until UPS delivered, so I had a backpack, a garment bag, and a large duffel, all terribly overstuffed; when I weighed the bags before leaving, they came to 95 pounds. I grabbed a cab at JFK and gave the address in the Bronx, to an apartment I had never seen but had rented over the phone. The cabbie didn’t know the Bronx very well, and I ended up navigating with my map. Since I didn’t know where the apartment was, exactly, I had the cab drop me off on the correct street, and I decided I would walk to find the right place. It only ended up being about five blocks, which isn’t bad unless you are dragging 95 pounds of luggage. When I got to the apartment, it was Sunday-morning quiet, and I ended up waiting on the porch for about an hour, ringing the bell every five minutes or so until someone finally woke up. The grad student who greeted me did not know that I was coming, and did not know that the landlord (who lived in Florida) had rented the place. Finally I established my legitimate claim to the apartment, but there was a catch: the grad student/tenant who had the key to my apartment was visiting his girlfriend in Tennessee. I decided to force a window, and climbed in to unlock the door. It remained unlocked until the guy with the key got back from his vacation. I lived there for three years.
2. Have you ever made a move you regretted? I had a sweet little apartment all to myself on Josephine Street in Berkeley, just around the corner from Fat Apples, a Jack London-themed restaurant that served a tasty burger. It was tiny, with a little built-in kitchen and one small room, but it was perfect for me. I let my girlfriend convince me that I should move in with her, and I always regretted it, not the least because said girlfriend turned out to be more than a little crazy. She once confided to me her dream in which she cut me in pieces while I slept. But that’s another story.
3. If money/work/significant other/family were no object, and you could move anywhere, where would you move? Tough question. Hmmm. I sometimes think a small tropical island would be cool, but then I feel that the cycling would be not so good there. Then I think Provence would be perfect–pretty scenery, good food, the Tour de France. Then I hear the land of my ancestors calling, and I think a farm in the Gaeltacht would be my ideal.
4. How many times have you moved in your life? Dad in the army until 1972=7 moves. Family on the run for various reasons until 1981=9. Family still settling down until 1985=4. College peripateticism=5. Post-college moves=4. Grad school moves=8. Marriage, career moves=3. Total=39. I win.
5. Is there anywhere you never hope to return to live? The town of my birth–Taft. The original name of the town, back in the late 19th or early 20th century, was Moron. I am not making this up.
6. What do you find to be the most difficult aspect of moving? Packing. I always realize how much crap I have accumulated, and I feel extraordinarily guilty about it. I feel I should throw all of it away, and I usually do end up throwing away something that I will miss years later. This, though, is the worst story: For Christmas one year, I received a radio-controlled R2D2. It was very cool, if a bit boring after a while. When we moved to Colorado, I sold it in a garage sale. For $10. Do you know what that thing would bring on Ebay today? I weep to think of the bike I could by for that kind of money.
7. What do you find to be the most exciting aspect of moving? The clean slate. Everything is fresh and new, waiting to be discovered. That room that was so sterile and empty will soon become a familiar and intimate place, but for a time it will be neither foreign nor domestic, perfectly in between.
8. How have your thoughts/ideas about moving changed throughout your life? When I was little, I always hoped that the next move would be the final one, the move where everything would be resolved and life would finally come together and present itself the way I knew that it was supposed to. Now, moves just make me weary.

I tag you.