When Have You Truly Moved? - Jan Edwards

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We moved house a year ago. It doesn’t feel that long and yet it does. People have stopped asking if we are ‘settled in yet’, and after twelve months I think we can probably say we feel comfortable here now. 
Certainly I feel able to write here - which took a while. It is not just the change in house but the uncertainty of having things to hand. That unpacking of your world - Virginia Woolf's  room of one's own where you can feel sure of creative flow with interruption. Okay - there are still spouses and telephones and door bells to deal with, but that scrabbling about for simple things like pens and research materials is no longer an issue.
There is an old adage that you have never truly moved house until you have unpacked the last box. Now I suspect on that score we have ‘unpacked’ most things in that we have opened all boxes and inspected the contents. But what about the boxes that were repacked and migrated to the attic? Or the shed? Do they count?
I spent half an hour today looking for a crystal sun catcher. I have not  knowingly seen it since we moved but the low winter sun is streaming through my office window and I thought how pretty it would be to have the rainbows that the crystal sent dancing out across the walls. 
So I searched.
It did not surface.
Being small it is conceivable that it became entangled in some bubblewrap and was accidentally discarded, or else (more likely) ended up in one of those re-packed boxes somewhere in the roof-void jungle.
It isn’t important in the scheme of things, and not some family heirloom whose loss will be lamented, but it made me wonder what else was packed away, never to resurface over the past twelve months, and in which case will we ever be truly settled in until they do? 
So long as I can write I am not sure it matters.
***
More about Jan Edwards and her work can be found on:
Blog: https://janedwardsblog.wordpress.com/
Facebook: jan.coleborn.edwards
Twitter: @jancoledwards

Titles in print – all available in print and dig formats
As author: Winter Downs; Fables and Fabrications;  Sussex Tales;  Leinster Gardens and Other Subtleties

Comments

Griselda Heppel said…
Don't lose hope! My mother found a small silver ornament 3 years after her move, that she'd been convinced had been thrown out with the packing material. I think you're doing really well to feel settled after a year, it is such an upheaval, especially to one's mental space.

AndI'm fascinated by how many spouses you have to deal with. Do tell.
25 October 2018 at 12:10
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