I’m living out of a box.
Literally, nearly all of my worldly possessions are boxed up and when I want to use something, like a pair of scissors or a measuring cup or hair mousse (who knew I used these items so often? Not I.), then I have to attempt to recall which box holds scissors or a measuring cup or mousse, search for the box, then dig through like an urban archeologist searching for clues to historic life. I suppose that’s what my life has come to—urban archeology, in the form of cardboard.
Of course, this is all part of moving from one house to another.
Ten years is a lot of time, too much time, to accumulate possessions. I consider myself to be a habitual purger, in that I make frequent trips to various nonprofit donation boxes scattered throughout my community to distribute outgrown clothing, read books, or other items that were once a must-have, but have now become a don’t-want-to-have. Even now, moving efficiently through rooms like a Middle Eastern mine sweeper, sorting through drawers and closets and shelves, saddled with a To Go box and a Hefty trash bag, it’s a lot of stuff.
My living room, once the lovingly spot for my couch, chairs and delicate Asian figurines, has now become Ground Zero for boxes and unwanted furniture, waiting for next weekends moving sale. It’s piled precariously, towering over any who dares to enter—and that would be Hallboy and I, carting in another load. Saturday, beginning at 8 am as advertised, in spite of those who may appear at dawn, I will open the door to my home, inviting strangers to purchase my discards. I’ve already planned the neon poster board signs that I’ll staple to the trees out front, and my mom has committed a morning of her weekend to be the money taker while I’m providing the tour of all that is too cumbersome to drag out of the basement or down two flights of stairs from the attic.
In less than two weeks time, I’ll be moving a world away. Geographically, it’s less than ten miles, just a skip across the Susquehanna Ocean that divides the communities, but culturally, Camp Hill is another world.
Living ten years in the inner city of Harrisburg has taught me a few lessons I’d rather not have learned, most of it not particularly positive in respect to other people and the lack of pride I’ve seen. In a neighborhood that was at one time the pride of the city, it is heart breaking to leave the Grand Dame of my house, which like the neighborhood that surrounds it, is falling into neglectful disrepair. For 120 months, I’ve engaged in the mental conversation with myself, “It this were my house…”, but it isn’t and I grown tired of hoping. My prediction is that the house I prepare to leave will become a catch-22, requiring too much money to properly repair for the next tenant, whose rent will fall short of covering the needed work.
I’ve made a few friends since I’ve lived here—my young school-teacher neighbor, Katie, whose parents helped her move into her first home purchased last summer, and Rudy’s family next door who helped me shovel my car from under the plowed snow each winter. Their faces fell when I told them I was moving, but I suspect they knew it was only a matter of time. Perhaps they, too, harbor those hopeful dreams of a true neighborhood where children can safely play, and graffiti and forgotten trash doesn’t litter the sidewalks and alley, and drug deals don’t happen around the corner. I wonder what they think when gunshots sound in the middle of the night, and hope they have not become like I have and simply think, ‘How close to my house was that?’, deciding that it wasn’t too close and roll over and go back to sleep.
Time moves fast, and I jog to keep up with it. Only one week ago, Hallboy received in the mail his letter from the charter high school, thanking him for his application, but denying him admission. I hear energetic boasts around the community that the public school has improved, and I think I see progress being made. Still, I decide that the progress has not managed to keep up with Father Time, and I am not willing to test it with my easygoing and whimsical son. The following day, I visit a house in Camp Hill and two days later, I sign a years’ lease.
It is smaller than my Grand Dame—no one can ever fill her shoes, and she, like my neighbors, allows herself to deflate just a bit when I bring home the first empty box to fill. I tell her the same things I’ve told myself, ‘The next phase of my life’, ‘Walking distance to a wonderful high school and the library’, ‘More economical to heat’, but like any who is being replaced, my words have little meaning. All she knows is that I’m leaving her.
I do not mention to her that the windows in the new house are double insulated and tilt in for easy cleaning, or that the living room and dining room floor is newly laid hardwood. I would not want to remind her of her windows that have lost their glazing and no longer fit snugly in their frames, or her weakened and worn floors. Nor do I mention the grand shade trees, the grassy sitting area, or the hydrangea bushes for fear that it would call attention to the tree branches scattered tiredly across her back yard, the earthen yard where grass refused to grow and the few flower bulbs that struggle each Spring to push from the soil. She would give up if she knew that the oil heater in the new house had been rebuilt and uses a significantly small amount of heating oil, as she struggles with her own ancient boiler. ‘It’s not you,’ I want to tell her, but I can’t. Not without clarifying, ‘It’s not about just you. It’s everything—you, the neighborhood, the school. It’s time for me to move on. I deserve more, I’ve worked for more, and it’s time for more.’ So, instead I say nothing.
I am moving in less than two weeks, and honestly, I do have grand expectations about it all. Not the move itself, but my new community, my new neighborhood, my new home. Some of those expectations are good, some challenging, but like most things in life, I expect that it will be a learning experience.
And, I tell myself that I’ll drive by the Grand Dame once in awhile, to see how she’s doing, but I know it’s probably not true. While I would love to see her shine with the pride I know she once had, I believe it is more likely that she will simply give up once I am gone.