Moving Lesson #9
On July 10th our family moved from the Eastside to the Northside of Seattle. The I-90 Bridge used to be my connection between home and the city, now I travel I-5. The lanscape is not as scenic as it used to be. Highway 99 is still an eyesore albeit providing a slew of stores I frequent (i.e. Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, etc). The changes that a move incurs — change of scenery, change of space, change of size of space, change of relational dynamics — can seem like a daunting mountain to tackle.
Our current home is #9. Contrary to most people’s thinking that things get easier the more you do them, I found this move to be physically more strenuous than past moves, in part because we had so much stuff collected over the years. How do you navigate through furniture, books, toys, and pictures? Without overthinking things, I gave away, threw away, stored away, and kept with me the things that our family would use.
I learned that a house is a physical container. The bigger your house, the more you tend to buy so as to fill it. The seeming necessity of painting your landscape with chairs, tables, and vases presses less upon my mind. Now, the daily routine includes preparing and eating a meal, washing my boys’ clothes, some cleaning, spending time with family, and making time to do what I love. And I turn my attention from the outer to the inner; I find that my desire is to nourish the interior house with the things that are invisible but palpable — to bear things with joy, to love and receive love — and in doing so, the manmade house where I reside becomes an extension of me and not a container that I must fill. First things first — care for the interior castle, and you can be “at home” wherever you are.
