settling into a new place
When I was a kid, the start of the school year signaled the start of a new year, more so than the ball dropping at midnight every January 1. It signaled a new opportunity to make friends, to sit next to the boy I had a crush on, to meet new teachers and read new books. My mom and I (and later, my sister) would go back-to-school shopping for clothes and school supplies, and the season signaled a mental shift, from the endless lazy summer days to structure and activity.
Over the past few years, the start of my new year has shifted slightly earlier---to late July, moving season here in Pittsburgh.
This is my sixth summer moving house since freshman year of college, and the eighth place I've lived over the course of my time at Pitt. Out of the dorms, into houses that need furniture, cleaning supplies, kitchenware, and more. I moved into my first place outside the dorms the summer before my junior year. We had no couch, just a rug and a coffee table in the living room---but we did have a balcony, with a view of the Cathedral of Learning if we craned our necks far enough southward.
I haven't gained much wisdom from packing and moving so many times, except that it is much better to do so as a communal effort. The summer before my senior year, I moved into a new house with four other friends, and though my own possessions were scant---a cot, a dresser, a duffle bag and a few boxes---I helped many of my roommates. One of my favorite memories from that summer was riding in the passenger seat of a U-Haul as my friend navigated the narrow, busy streets of South Oakland; Alex helped me move into that house, weeks before we started dating.
The year after that, the pandemic year, several of us were moving at once, with a few days between the end and start of our leases. Another friend was in town, waiting for their med school to announce its plans for the fall. We orchestrated Alex and his roommates' move-out; Alex's and my move-in; three others' move-out and move-in; while two other friends moved into the house at Neville, which had become the home base for our group.
It was late July, and drizzly in the morning, and three friends huffed and puffed as they helped me carry furniture---up the hill to the gate, across the courtyard of my apartment building, and up two flights of stairs to my third-floor apartment. We sweated through our masks and gobbled up cold sandwiches from CVS in between trips, while Alex drove that year's U-Haul through the city, helping other friends move (there is a story about an antique china cabinet that he would love to tell you, if you asked).
This year, we are once again shuffling, the group of friends scattering just a little bit further throughout the city, and the country. Two in one place, three in another, three in another, one friend off to grad school and Alex off to cornfield country by fall---the house at Neville, the site of many a birthday party and movie night, finally rid of us.
The new house is on a quiet street full of dogs, and Hazel is taking her time adjusting (read: barking, a lot). We have central air, a wild luxury, and my little room on the second floor has an old fire place and an exposed brick wall and a little closet that is just big enough to fit my clothes and dresser. The fridge keeps our drinks cold---more than I can say for the fridge in our old apartment, which could only keep milk for a handful of days and even less if we had the AC unit running. My roommates and I have arranged an assortment of mismatched chairs and one futon around Alex's coffee table, where a few nights ago we gathered and ate dim sum and sipped smoothies that my roommate had made for us.
I'm already charmed by this house, with its washer and dryer, the high ceilings, the downstairs bathroom with more counter space I've had in a bathroom since I lived in the dorms. The large kitchen sink, the open kitchen and living room, which invites family meals and laughter and games of fetch with Hazel. I am already thinking about how much I'll miss this place when it's time to move again.
Sometime soon, there'll come a summer when I do not have to cram all my possessions into boxes and carry them up and down several flights of stairs; when Cathy will no longer stand like a lighthouse over the city, the compass guiding me homeward. I graduate this spring, for good this time, and have at least one more late-July move to look forward to. I'm just trying not to rush it.
Thanks for reading, and talk to you soon,
---mia xx
