A moving story.
A “Hot Flashes” column by Sue Langenberg
It is not about sniffing into a Kleenix during a chick flick, or crying at a wedding. Poetic musings can be emotionally musing, or a child’s wisdom about life. I have cried over a lot of things.
It is literally about moving, that is, moving one’s life belongings from one location to another. That is something to really cry about. I was moved to remember how agonizing and disruptive the process is. One friend announced to the world via social network that next time, he would hire the professionals, “they’re called morticians,” he wrote. Another was still emailing that he would be back in business soon after he gets settled from his move. That was months ago.
I haven’t moved in over two decades, and am still in recovery. It was a mere four blocks down the same street, but it could have been from one side of the nation to the other, which a friend of mine once braved when she moved from Maine to Arizona. If one looks at a map, it could be closer to get to the moon. And she did this with various cats, lifelong furniture treasures and other various and diverse objects that she couldn’t live without. Then, promptly sold, donated and/or gave away much of the stuff once moved. She suddenly decided that she could live without it.
It gets down to the stuff that we really need in life and wondering if it would be worth it to move it elsewhere again.
So when my last move was nearby, besides the regular furniture items, boxes of various things and somewhere a toothbrush, I also moved a piano. Not a spinet, not a lightweight keyboard and not even a grand. A real piano from early 20th century called an upright grand. It took four gorillas to move. That’s why it has had few addresses in all these decades; about four.
Thus, in anticipation of having the professionals, called “the morticians” move me next time, I thought that I would make my family’s life easier ahead of time. The piano needs work, about the same amount as my wrinkles. It has had a hay day of important plunkings and I’m done having it take up too much room.
Maybe I’m not a very good salesman about these things, but most people run away from me if I mention pianos. So far, some of my friends are glad that they never studied music. The garbage pickup people avoid my house in case I get it to the curb. Fat chance, because those gorillas don’t speak, either. My last resort is the number of a moving company. I dread making the call because then it will be yet another enemy on my list.
Then I looked around to see what else would have to be moved, besides me in a box. Well, my books have always been special to me, though I have donated steamy novels that I don’t get steamed up about anymore and various “How To’s” that I never learned how to do.
My furniture is not exactly valuable. In fact, it is rapidly turning into shredded wheat due to a couple of teenage cats that have not yet been declawed (I have to whisper that). There is a couch that is turning into the shape of my rear end and a bedroom set that must be held up by cinder blocks. There are dishes and kitchenware; I don’t actually cook, but they’re there in case I ever do.
Maybe I won’t need the morticians or the movers, after all. Just a handy bulldozer.
“Hot Flashes” book available at amazon.com and on as an ebook, $5.99…
