Moving Days

Now I wonder how I ever managed, now that both computers are upstairs in the same room. No more all-day-long migrations from upstairs to downstairs and back again. Toggling between computers. Sometimes I’d think, “This is crazy”, and “I’ve got to do something about this”. Trouble was I knew it involved a huge upheaval. Moving a computer can be a nightmare of cables and connectors, and who knows if everything will work after it’s been pulled apart. And there are the spare desks that need to find new homes. Worse, during a move, there is all that untamed office ‘stuff’, paper clips, staplers, elastic bands, labels (so many kinds of label) spilling over every available surface.

Today conditions ripened for a move culminating this evening with two desks being taken away in a U-Haul truck on route to become part of a young couples first new home together. Everything is working OK and the unruly paper clips are trapped behind a curtain for the moment. They and the rest of the rabble can have their freedom for now.

We would have upheaval days in the monastery, sometimes they lasted several days. Offices would be moved, people would move, furniture would move and garden carts full of stuff would be moved. During one such day I remember walking the cloister with a fellow monk who was a bit put out. Somewhat insensitively I chatted on enthusiastically about how good I thought it was because moving stuff brought the truth of impermanence before us. True, however my timing was poor.

Well anyway. Over the years I’ve grown to enjoy sorting and shifting, de-cluttering and taming stuff and then vacuuming up afterwards. All the same, there remains the tendency to put off making moves.

This posting is dedicated to those who are poised on the brink of a move. “Come on in the water’s fine”.
Oh, and good fortune to the couple starting there new life to-day.

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5 thoughts on “Moving Days”

  1. Years ago when I used to work for Whitbread I remember overhearing two young girls chatting one evening. Their new desks had just been allocated in the ‘pig pen’ next to mine and they were reviewing their new location and one said to the other wistfully “I wonder how long it will be before we get our permanent desks …”

    A couple of years later, working for the second new corporate employer and two floors higher up in the building I reminded them of this and we all had a good laugh

  2. Ah, moving! I remeber when I moved here to Germany and I had 33 years worth of STUFF! Many things that meant a lot to me, I gave to friends…one difficult gift to my best friends was my cat, Hugo! He was already fifteen years old and the vet advised me that it wouldn’t be wise to transport him all the way here. So, I had to leave him BUT I see him everytime I visit…he is over 20 now! Last time in Denver, when we were ready to leave, he sat on top of my suitcase.

    Most everything else I sold in a yard sale…and then with only a few books shipped over by post…I started a new life. And, I have to say, it was rather freeing to let so much STUFF go! I’m much better about really sticking with what’s needed or only keeping what is really precious to me!

    All the best…Jack

  3. I have always been particularly cunning when it comes to finding ways of distracting myself from tidying up, general organisation and the like…i can laugh about it, but actually it often gets to the point where there’s something potentially serious that comes around somewhere down the line as a result.
    …any tips? How do you get to begin to enjoy sorting and shifting?!

    best,
    Miles

  4. I hate sorting stuff and moving! But I always find that it is ok once you have started. Why is it that we invest so much time and mental effort in convincing ourselves it is impossible or at least very difficult, when we only have to put one foot in front of the other and just do it!

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