The Years Go Fast but the Days are Slow

i hope i remember these days

these days of quiet busyness

these days of noisy innocence

when i was your captive audience

i hope i remember this time

this time of frantic stillness

these moments of static movements

when you were my precious vocation

                                       

Our Move as told in the second person narrative

Moving house is a journey of a thousand miles (give or take a few) that starts with one step forward and then... two steps back. Deep, yes?

It starts with moving out. You say things like, "It has to get worse to get better, right?" to yourself as you survey the wreckage wondering why do we have so much stuff and how on earth are we going to fit it all into that truck, and no matter how much help you have and how ahead of the game you think you are, there is still going to be a mad scramble at the end to finish all the cleaning (gotta get that damage deposit!) and fit all the last bits and pieces into the car. 

Then, by some miracle, the move out is done and you are on the ferry sipping a coffee while your baby sleeps and your toddler plays, sailing across the Georgia Strait with all your worldly possessions in a U-haul on the lower deck.

You arrive on the mainland, and after a long, hot drive through Vancouver traffic with two crying children and a very near pants-wetting (I won't say whose), you pick up the keys and drive up to your new place. The U-haul vomits its contents into the suite (with a lot of help from your friends) and the dance begins. 

It's a slow dance, no, more like a shuffle or a do-si-do. One step forward, one step back. One step forward, one step back.

 It goes like this: You can't put the crib together until you find the screws, which happen to be in a box near the back of the third bedroom/guestroom/office/storage-for-now, but of course you don't find that bag of screws until after you've already put the crib together using the ones you managed to buy in just four trips to the hardware store. And of course every room in the house has its own similar process. Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining. Anyone who's moved house can testify that this is just how it is.

Normal life is suspended because tasks like cooking and laundry are out of the question until you've unpacked the box with your frying pan and bought shelves to put those clean towels on. You don't want to be at home because of the mess, but you feel bad going out when there's so much to do, so you just keep dancing. You open boxes, you collapse boxes, you stack boxes, you shuffle boxes from the bedroom, to the hallway, to the "storage". You make messes, you clean up messes, you make more messes, you move the mess to the "storage" until finally the dust starts to settle (Literally. There is a lot of dust) and little moments of order start to emerge out of the chaos. You start to do things you felt you might never do again- like hosting friends for store-bought peach pie or getting your toddler to bed on time.

And finally you're sitting in what is becoming your favorite spot in the house, munching granola and telling the story of your move as if it was just a memory. 

Just don't open the door to the guest room.

New City Resolutions

Before I start, I should clarify that Vancouver is not exactly new to me - I have lived here before. I just need to get that off my chest because I don't want to seem disingenuous to any literalists out there.
That said, I lived here before as a singleton in my early twenties and now I am married and the full-time mama of two small people. I am seeing things through new eyes as it were.
If you're wondering about the bolding, that is just me awarding myself word points. If you're wondering what word points are, that is just something Addison and I award to each other if one of us uses a word (or phrase) well. It doesn't even have to be used well really, maybe its just a cool word or a fun phrase. Sometimes I use a word totally wrong and I give myself points for trying. It doesn't have to be an obscure or fancy word, just the right word. I am generous with word points, especially in awarding them to myself, because I happen to like a lot of words.
Onwards and upwards...
I am drawn back to my blog for the usual reasons- I am making some resolutions. In this case, New City Resolutions. It is a new season in a new city and I am taking the liberty of reinventing myself. Not in any serious ways, just in ephemeral ways. You'll see what I mean when you read the resolutions.

Things I would like to do differently:

1. Write in my blog for the purpose of improving/maintaining my writing skills. And by writing skills I mean using proper grammar and putting the commas in the right places. And also by using cool words and awarding myself word points. And also to improve my photography skills. And also for the fun of having a project. Or maybe I will just write this post. Time will tell.

2. Tidy the kitchen and load the dishwasher at the end of the night and unload it in the morning. That's right, we are living in the lap of luxury- we have a dishwasher.

3. Go running. Be a runner. Be the kind of person who goes for runs. Don't be so sedentary.

4. Walk more. Drive less. Do life in walking distances.

5. Shop local. I feel pretentious saying that because its not really for any ethical reasons (although the ethical reasons are great), I just want the nice streamlined feeling of always buying my meat at the same butcher, my bread at the same bakery, my coffee at the same coffee shop, my fruit at the same market, on the same street in my own neighborhood. There are some who love variety and others who love comfort - I am a creature of comfort.

6. Be streamlined and minimalist. Sometimes I feel that I am two people- one of me accumulates junk, never puts anything away, cuts corners, and is generally cluttered and messy. The other one of me delights in arranging her toddler's Little People Farm toys in a beautiful vignette on his toy shelf every night, carefully stacks her journals and devotionals according to size and colour, loves to get rid of stuff, and relaxes by writing down new lists, schedules, and budgets. I believe that I have the potential to be incredibly organized and I plan on tapping into that potential in this season.

7. I want to take myself (just me and I) out for coffee once a week or so and spend a couple hours editing all my lists, journals, recipes, sermon notes, devotional thoughts and write a 'good copy' into a beautiful journal that I will actually want to keep. I love journals and notebooks and stationary in general, but on the rare occasion that I actually complete a note book I find that it is so messy and scattered, so like my first self, that my second self usually rips off the cover, uncoils the metal binding and throws the rest into a recycling bin. I know what you're wondering- do I recycle the metal binding? The answer is no, I  throw it in the garbage. It is quite wasteful, especially if it is a beautiful notebook.

8.  Be less wasteful. This is a serious one. I've been thinking a lot about waste recently, so much so that I've started to pray that I would develop a "waste conscience". That probably sounds like a strange thing to pray, but I find when I start to notice any character deficiency in my life the best thing I can do is pray about it- otherwise I am burdened with guilt over my powerlessness to change. Praying for a "waste conscience" before a big move is an interesting thing to do- lets just say I was very conscious of waste, thinking "fresh start in Vancouver fresh start in Vancouver" as I tossed half empty bottles of expired lotion into our apartment dumpster. Or were they half full? I guess we'll never know.

9. Cook more creatively. Hone my kitchen skills. Make delicious cookies and iced tea.

10. Go on adventures. Have an Adventure Bag. As in, "Let's go on adventure! I'll grab the bag!"
I probably don't need to explain that an Adventure Bag is a bag that is always packed and ready with essential adventure items.

And those are my resolutions for my life in East Vancouver.
Of course this list is not exhaustive, but its 1:15 am. Enough said.