Bodies in motion

We’ve been packing up our house for the last three weeks, more or less. It’s been a huge amount of work, and it’s highlighted that we’re both packrats willing to acquire and store as much stuff as our surroundings will allow. Clearly the only option left to us is to live aboard a boat, where we will only be able to acquire so many different shoes and bottles of different vinegars before sinking.

(I suppose the alternative is developing self-discipline or some sort of Buddhist detachment from material possessions, but come on. Living on a boat seems way more realistic than either of those things.)

My mom and stepfather came and stayed with us for five days last week and were astounding catalysts for us to get our asses in gear sooner than we would have otherwise. While we’ve got some serious cleaning and packing left to do before we load the truck Tuesday, we’re in much, much better shape than we would have been otherwise.

We’ve been immersing ourselves in the things we love about living up here – dinner with friends, lunch looking at trees, quiet mornings and dead rodents on the back porch – and so the idea that we’ll be rolling into New York City Wednesday afternoon and actually staying there seems totally unreal. We’re psyched and nervous and suffering the fatigue that comes from handling all of one’s ludicrous number of worldly belongings, and at the moment we’re still agog at our optimism about how much we’ll fit into this apartment. It’s a two-bedroom, to be sure, but still.

One quick story, and then back to packing: when I moved out of Somerville four years ago, I called the Somerville Office of Traffic and Parking and let them know that we’d have a moving truck parked outside our apartment at a particular date and time. The night before the truck showed up, Somerville’s Finest dropped off two sawhorses with “No Parking” signs on them, and we happily placed them so that when we got the truck, we’d have a place to park it. Worked like a charm.

So on a whim, I called New York’s city information line to ask if NYC did anything similar. The very pleasant woman on the phone had to have me explain my request twice, paused for an incredulous second or two, and then said, “Well, we do things differently here.” I asked her if we’d just have to double park, and she laughed and said, “of course I can’t tell you to double park – that would be illegal.” I guess we’ll just figure it out when we get there.