the place shuffle (home)
Mid October. I just stuffed my things - all of my things - into this small honda civic, once again. Grocery bags and peeling duffels and crates of books in hand and over my shoulders, running up and down the stairs and bumbling through doors, one trip after another. I’m sweaty (it’s been hot in San Francisco) and determined, feeling a burden decrease with each load in all this frantic back and forth. The whole time, I am holding my breath a little bit. Yet another move. When the last load is dropped in the new room and the car parked, I stop and bask in the glow of my new window. The work of moving is far from done - I think it has only just begun! - but I am learning that it is important to pause often, otherwise we might never stop at all.
~
My new room has tall ceilings and a tall window looking out onto the street. Still not fully unpacked, when each evening comes during this first week I sprawl in the cozy space that is mine, mine, mine to inhabit. I watch the setting sun move through the room and look outside to see it fading behind twin peaks. I gaze at the walls, the ceiling, the window, and imagine their potential.
Each evening this summer, I would pack books and a headlamp into my black bag, say goodnight to anyone still in the shared research station kitchen, and walk out to my little tent on the lawn beneath a Redwood. I shuffled and shimmied my way into bed like a creature crawling into an underground burrow. My tent is tiny. A line of battery powered string lights above my head made the space feel more like home and the Redwood stood over me as I read myself to sleep - the roof of my tent inches from my face. Sometimes it was lonely out there in my little cocoon of netting. Sometimes I felt so lucky to be alone under that big tree. It didn’t rain all summer. One night I was ushered inside by roadwork happening on the highway across the river. In the mornings, I opened my eyes and the world was already there, around me. I would turn my head to see if the light was on in the kitchen - if anyone else was up - before emerging from my cramped bubble.
~
In the victorian where I now live, the afternoon light gushes through our west facing windows. When the sky is clear, the full beams streaming through our tall eyes of glass are a real presence. They heat up my room and the living room like gentle ovens. The sweet hexagonal coffee table in the nook of the bay window shines as if onstage. In the mornings, I creep out to the back porch, having to wind through the kitchen and bathroom on the way. Juggling coffee, pens, a stack of books, I patter through our sunroom (our sunroom!), and let myself out the back door where I reign over an unexpected strip of green. The yards of our neighbors make up a patchwork of trees and bushes where the birds commute and eat and play and greet each other.
Last winter, I lived in a basement. It was a good basement: cozy, tucked under my aunt and uncle and cousins house. I had two small windows that opened to the space under the deck. Everything was small: the door frames, the stove, the bench to sit on in the kitchen. But the space was all mine and that was exciting. I even had my own entrance, that I would roll my bike through when returning home. I stretched on my carpeted floor or on the deck upstairs. I tried to make friends with the cat that jumped over the fence and hung out in the yard. I planted veggies in the garden beds; only the peas did well. Once a week or so, I joined the family upstairs for dinner and heard about their lives: soccer practice, school, work. I would share about mine: work, classes at city college, exploring the city with wide-eyed enthusiasm.
~
I live with four other people in my new home, a lucky craigslist find. Sometimes I find them on the porch in the morning, and we talk about the green and the birds. I often find them in the kitchen, sometimes with headphones in, in our own worlds, sometimes without, ready to share about our days. I get sucked into the kitchen when someone is there, chopping more beats than I meant to. There are candles in the living room and flowers on the table. We have heaped too much fruit in the bowls in the kitchen.
~