Out of Minneapolis

Monday

Well we’re here. By god I can’t believe it but we’re here. I am surrounded by boxes and partially torn apart cupboards and half-arranged furniture, but we’re here and I’m looking out over the lake. The wind is blowing fiercely through the ancient trees, which are whipping around at the top like women dancing with scarves. The wind is whistling and sounds like a ghostly howl, much like the sound of loons which we fell asleep listening to last night.

The weekend was busy and wonderful. We moved all day Sat. It took fifteen adults and two movers with a giant truck to get all our worldly positions out of South Minneapolis. There was rain on and off all day. We sweated and hustled and cleaned and wedged boxes and small pieces of furniture into every corner of the two trucks we reserved. The grandmas tidied and brought food for us to eat at the next house.

As people gradually ran out of steam during off-loading, they trickled in to fuel up on pasta salad and sandwiches. Some of us motherly sorts wandered around and fed bites of sandwiches to our stronger, more enduring counterparts who were still sweating their way on and off the truck. We didn’t get everything inside until three that afternoon.

But here we are and it’s silent and wonderful. All we hear is the breeze off the lake by day and the crickets and loons by night. When the corner of my eye catches a glimpse of the sun waving and twinkling in reflection on the glass, I still reflexively think that one of our many neighbors is walking a dog or herding kids past our window. It takes a moment to realize that I am looking out over a half acre of rolling grass and not the busy corner of Chicago Ave where our lives seemed on constant display from every room in our house.

I went back to the Minneapolis house yesterday, to finish cleaning and to pick up those mysterious straggling items that belong in no box, and as I gathered my things to leave, I took a moment to survey the open emptiness of the home that sheltered us for seven years. When we moved on Saturday, two close friends asked if I felt emotional about leaving and (as a plane tore through the air at mach seven, just feet above our heads) I answered honestly: no. But as I stood there in the echoing living room, noting all the changes we had made to the place over the years, I was overcome with a feeling of gratitude.

I felt grateful to this house for keeping us warm and dry and insulated from the noisy air and streets for all these years. I felt grateful for all the memories Ryan and I have made here with each other, our friends, and our families. How many late nights did we sit up talking politics, tuning our moral compasses by glass after glass of wine with our friends here in this very room? How many parties have been here? How many barbeques, movie nights? This is the house we moved into after we got home from Spain, engaged. Where we lived as we planned our wedding had Twila; where I first got it in my head that I should be a writer. I suddenly felt grateful for all these memories, all these formative life events. I felt grateful to Ralph and Averill for building this house fifty-plus years ago—when it was the only house for blocks—and for selling it to us below market value because they liked us and wanted to sell their home to someone who would appreciate it.

And we have. This home was perfect for us. My hope is that our new home will feel just as perfect for even more years, events and memories.