Day -34 : Live the Adventure

Someday I'll be hiking. That's not today. In fact hiking hasn't been at the top of things I've been thinking about. We moved Saturday, well sort of. Friday was a day of packing, as in filling boxes with stuff. Where's my stuff? Scattered thoughts, mostly not about hiking. I took a lap around my yard on Saturday, it's still my yard until sometime today. But it was my last lap. The first profession on earth was a gardener and somewhere deep in my DNA is a love for plants and gardens. When we moved into our home in 2009 the yard was a big field of weeds. We had it completely made over into a wonderful oasis of green. For the last few years the trees and shrubs, tended with care, really began to thrive. Everything is in bloom, the citrus buds are about to burst in that intoxicating tropical smell that comes from citrus trees. I will miss it. Saturday was my last day in my garden. Our new place doesn't even have a yard. I'm not sure yet even where I'll put my gas grill. What gas grill?

Saturday was a long day. We initially expected that our stuff would be moved from our old place to our new place. Our plan was to split up and divide the tasks of moving between us. Kelli would provide over-watch and direction to the movers at our old place. I would go to our new place and provide access to the Internet and TV techs as well as direct the location of the soon to be delivered stuff. That's where our plan broke down. Firstly, the packers on Friday didn't finish packing. The movers on Saturday decided to finish packing before beginning moving. We decided to go with a professional moving company instead of the 'Few guys with a Big Truck' experience of our last move.

Kelli and I called each other on the status of our different tasks throughout the day. The movers showed up later than we expected. Huh, well I guess they know what they are doing. Kelli's perspective was that they were not moving very quickly and that they seemed to need to stop and smoke a lot. I was having may own adventures with getting our TV service installed. I won't mention any names but all I want is to transfer my TV service from our old place to our new place. There is no easy way to summarize this part but I will try. I spend hours on the phone ordering a replacement service that is supposedly exactly the same as my previous service, only because the guy from the company told me the service I have was unavailable at my new place. The installer installs the replacement service, which is nothing like the service I had before, I tell him I don't want the replacement service (no DVR) so don't install it. I call the company back and find, oh, they do have the service I want. So today I wait for him to arrive.

Kelli calls in the middle of Saturday afternoon. The movers aren't going to be able to deliver everything thing today. They want to know what we want on the one truckload they can deliver and want to know when we are available on Sunday. I didn't choose my words very carefully and ended up saying things in a way that was less than friendly. "Come back over here." she said. When I arrived the movers seemed to be moving in slow motion. They moved about with the appearance of being significantly busy but it seemed like very little was actually being loaded onto the trucks. Weird. I spoke with one of the movers, they were all quite friendly. He suggested I walk with him and identify the things we needed to have on the first truck. So I did. I pointed out a few things that we must have, like all the things in our master bedroom. He said, "Ok, what else," So I identified some more things and said, "Stop me when the truck is full." I kept going and basically picked everything that we'd need. "No problem," he says. "Call me if you have any questions." and I give him my number and he tests it, my phone rings.

Cool, that was easy, that was easy, since I'm here, I'll grab the house plants and a few boxes of household cleaners and what not that they won't load on the trucks. Problem solved. I bring the stuff back to the new place. Hours pass, Kelli shows up tired and frazzled. "They are so slow..." We organize the few things that we brought ourselves. Mom shows up with take-and-bake pizza which we bake, eat, and sit around until the sun sets. I try calling the mover back that tested my number earlier, no answer. "Let's go check on them." I suggest. We drive back to the old place. Both trucks are about two-thirds full and it's getting dark. They seem to be loading things onto the trucks by they are clearly not done. They struggle to figure out home to get me desk out of my office. I help them dis-assemble it. They load it on the truck. We wait and wait, sitting on the steps as movers ebb and flow past like the surf on the beach.

The house is mostly empty and sad, I think it will miss us. I know that I will miss it. I wonder if this is how Abram felt when leaving Haran. Everything was comfortable and everything had its place. The house was just as he liked it. A voice said go, and he left the comfortable and familiar and set out for something new. We are leaving the comfortable and familiar, not because we have to or need to, but something, someone one, is saying go. So we go. Abram obeyed and spent the rest of his life living an unexpected life, living in tents. We won't be living in tents, well actually I will, for about five months. After that, no tents, but we'll be renting. I wonder if we'll ever own a place again. I hope to, I plan to... but I don't think Abram planned to live the rest of his life in tents, just like I don't plan to rent for the rest of my life. The unsettled life of the sojourner. We are but pilgrims passing thru. That which you think you own, if you're not careful, ends up owning you. To be truly free you must reject false masters and follow the One.

It's dark, the movers have finished the house is empty and forlorn. It'll get over it, the new owner are excited to take possession, they'll be good care-givers to this house. Time to move on. We drive through the dark, Kelli and I, each of us with our own thoughts. The movers stop to get another case of cigarettes. We stand in our new empty living room waiting for them. It's dark and quite, there is a restriction on noise after 10pm that goes into affect shortly. Still no movers. Maybe they are smoking? A rumbling in the distance that ground shakes and thunders, the once quiet loop is shattered by the loud screech and hiss of two trucks' air brakes. Our neighbors frown and scowl, I imagine as they peer through the blinds and around the drapes. Just like that first Easter so many years ago. Everything was normal and quiet, Silence reigned and the Roman contingent sat around in a garden. On orders from Pontius Pilate as a sop to the religious leaders of this non-descript province of the Roman Empire. They were to guard a tomb to keep followers of a recently crucified enemy of the state and religious system from stealing a body. Their peace and quier was disturbed too, and the world is a better place because of it.

The movers, exhausted from a day of smoking, packing, and loading trucks, determine that it is no longer safe to unload a truck, in the dark, and up the stairs and ask us what we need. In my mind I think, the stuff on this truck is the stuff we need. I mumble something about bed, some clothes, basics. They unload a few pieces of furniture, climb around searching for boxes with the right labels. Sorting and shifting in the darkness of the back of the truck. "Sure would be nice to have a light back here," I say as I hold my iPhone with the light on over my head. They unload a few more boxes after shifting through other boxes to find the correctly labeled ones. I grab some of the rejected, unworthy to be unloaded boxes and haul them into the house myself. The movers stop for another cigarette. They are done, they pronounce. I wonder how much of my stuff has been crushed and broken by movers crawling over the top in the dark. "It's only stuf'f," I tell myself. With a roar and a hiss trucks roar off into the night with ninety percent of our worldly possessions in the back. That was two days ago. I tried calling the moving company this morning. Too early, I guess, I left a message.

The adventurous life has begun, nothing is comfortable or familiar.