Between the Rings

The dog didn’t know it was our last walk through the neighborhood. She tried to stop at her familiar sniffing places, and now I wished I’d let her linger, sniff to her heart’s content, but I was already tugging her along. Toward home where we were all packed up. The various liquids you’re not allowed to load onto a moving van were loaded into our cars. Who knew we had so many liquids. Cleaning supplies and toiletries. Laundry detergent, lotions, cooking oils. I had a list running in my head. 

Clean out the fridge. Vacuum out the cabinets. Sweep the garage. Cut one last batch of lettuce from the garden. I forgot that one. Too many things to check off, and in the end, it was rush rush rush and no time to fiddle with lettuce. Also, I had come down with some kind of bacterial eye infection. For a few days I put off dealing with it, but then it got too gruesome. 

Hmm, the eye doctor said. What have you been up to lately? Any break in your usual routine?  

We’re moving, I told her. 

Well, that could do it. All that dust stirred up. She poked and prodded while I took a breath. Sitting in her office was the first fifteen-minute stretch of time in I don’t know how long where there was nothing to do but sit and blink away tears. 

And then it was right back to the ever-scrolling to-do list in my head. What happened was we made an offer on a house, but it won’t be ready for a month, so for now, we’re house hopping. Remember that nice image my friend Deb shared about being on a flying trapeze, how you have to let go of one ring before you can latch onto the next? 

Well, this is us now, fumbling in mid-air. A few days housesitting for a friend who’s out of town, a couple of weeks in an Airbnb, a visit with our daughter. 

An extended vacation! another friend said, excitedly, and I am trying to embrace that, but it’s not easy, as my husband and I unload the bins of various liquids from the cars, the multiple coolers, the bags of medicines, now including antibiotics and eyedrops, the multiple boxes of dog-related paraphernalia.

Cars emptied, and suddenly I find myself sitting again. After weeks of frenzied cleaning and packing, of a house closing and a house hunting, and more packing and more cleaning, of quitting the job that I loved, of going-away parties and goodbye lunches with friends, followed by more packing and—how much crap do we own and do I even care about any of this stuff?—

here I am, on Day One, between the flying trapeze rings. 

My friend’s house feels unfamiliar without her in it, her neighborhood lovely and strange. I’ve never walked around here before. In the morning the dog and I set out to explore. A new to-do list is building behind my eyes, but I blink it away. 

When the dog stops at a never-before-sniffed fire hydrant, I let us both linger.