This is my world.

I’m a little overwhelmed. Actually, more than a little.

More overwhelmed than the cats, who don’t have to unpack. After spending the first 2 days wedged under the bed they are now revved up and feisty, fueled by their pride in their own tremendous courage.

Annabelle discovered the big window sill in the kitchen – witness her doing her happy stretch – then she twigged and ran around checking all the other windows in the apartment. Sure enough, all have big sills. Happy, happy cat.

Wolfie has followed and is a keen pigeon-watcher.

Moving day was very rough, but it’s over now. There are little pathways carved amongst the piles of stuff. My computer is set up. Things are slowly, slowly falling into place. And despite the chaos and trauma of transition, I really love my new home.

This is it. This is the week when the horrible reality of moving hits home. All I want to do is write show ‘n tell posts about stuff I’m unearthing as I pack, or maybe make a little You Tube movie about how the cats are coping with the stress. Anything really. Anything to avoid packing, and packing, and packing…

But I’m a big girl and when push comes to shove I can set myself a boundary. No more blog reading. No posting this week. Got to get me to the new place and then we can have fun with the stuff when it comes OUT of the boxes.

See you on the other side!

“Are we there yet?”

I get the Quilt of the Month email from the International Quilt Study Center. Some quilts are old, made by unknown stitchers, others are by renown contemporary quilt artists.

This one is from January, and appeals to me since I have houses on the brain.

Reminds me of this mailbox I saw in Sunset Park while apartment hunting.

I think that was right before we saw the place where the sink was in the shower, and there was a hot tub in the closet next to the toilet…

This mask was my first assignment when I took a class with Katharine Cobey.

Many of my guests are freaked out by it. I like it.

Packing requires touching everything, visiting a little.
CON: it slows me down. PRO: it entertains me.

Saturday was the farmers market at McCarren Park. There was a live band playing; I saw a toddler doing the butt-squat dance.

There were lines for fresh milk and for chicken. I bought tomatoes and corn. It felt like taking a tiny, colorful, glorious vacation.

I’m packing everything I own. I thought that for someone who reads a lot, I don’t own many books. Turns out I was wrong; I’ve just filled twelve boxes with books. This doesn’t bode well for the stuff I do think I have a lot of.

Packing is hard work, physically and emotionally, but it doesn’t fit the exclusive and extremely narrow definition that my mind has for “real work”. Packing was about to join housework and self-care on the list of things that I expect to happen without using up any actual time, but I spotted impossible expectations at it again. Just in the nick of time.

The solution? Dancing breaks. I plan to make the most of these last weeks of living alone, performing my solo expressionist dance creations for two unimpressed (if not disturbed) cats, and the occasional driver stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway who glances up at my windows as I go twirling by.

Now that I only have 3 weeks left in this neighborhood I’m feeling equally sentimental about the many ‘must try’ places that are about to be abandoned unexperienced, as I am about my favorites, like Maggie Brown. Especially Sunday brunch on the terrace.

And I’m trying not to order Thai food every single night, knowing that there won’t be Thai in the new hood. How will we survive?

I’ve updated my jewelry web site. Check it out – there are new designs and some additions to the spirals and zig zags.

Soon after my last move a friend gave me a bunch of furniture, including a wicker arm chair which she’d found on a Brooklyn street. It’s very comfortable, and my cat Annabelle has adopted it for her own. This is Annabelle’s chair:

Yesterday my building had a stoop sale. We were setting up and I saw my upstairs neighbor bring out a chair that looked identical to mine. I told him, and he said that he too had found his chair on the street – when he lived in Hong Kong. Two chairs found abandoned on the street, in cities on opposite sides of the planet, living in the same building.

Throughout the day I kept staring at his chair, imagining someone buying it and carrying it away; I couldn’t bear the thought. Mid-afternoon I asked him if his price was firm. “You know what – for you, free. They should be together.”

I’m beginning to suspect that while we may believe we’re masters of our own destiny, in fact our stuff is sucking us in the wake of it’s own purpose.