A Moving Journal: Entry Two

Selection by Exhaustion 

I'm going to leave this paragraph in here, even though I think I fixed it:

I don’t know how many of you, if any will actually see this post. One result of moving induced exhaustion was the deletion of all the email addresses to whom the Wall is sent. There may be a way to retrieve them within the Evernote app, but I think I need to be on a computer to do so. Being restricted to my phone and tablet for the time being, that attempt will have to put on hold. The possible silver lining to this dark cloud is the fact that while The Wall is sent to about 85 folks, only 35 or so of you actually look at it. Yes! Blogger does tell me that, but unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your feelings regarding digital privacy, Blogger does not tell me who the 35 are!  Anyhow, no use worrying about that until I am back in front of my computer - sometime next month.

But that is not the selection by exhaustion issue that concerns me at the moment. One of the most vexing issues of moving house - I like the British version - is the “what to keep/what to leave” dichotomy. It is influenced by a variety of variables - some pragmatic, like how does the space being moved to differ from the space currently lived in?  And is that favorite piece of driftwood from Santa Fe worth the cost of moving it from North Carolina to Chicago? But the pragmatic is inextricably interwoven with the emotional.

After a good night’s sleep, breakfast and a cup of coffee or an energy drink, making those decisions is well within your capabilities. But eight or nine hours later, after many such decisions and trips to Goodwill and the dump, exhaustion raises its evil head, or more accurately, lays down its weary head and the possibility of bad decisions runs amuck. 

Like great, grand Aunt Cecilia’s wedding dress. “God, the fabric and the faux pearls alone weigh a ton. And those are moth holes! Besides the woman died in 1837!” And there goes Aunt Cecilia into the Goodwill box.

It is fortunate that neither children or pets share our current abode, or Aunt Cecilia might have some company!

A Moving Journal

For those of you who didn't get the earlier post, back in early July Evernote decided to erase all the email addresses that I use to send the Wall out to you. I knew there was a way to retrieve them, but it was one of those archaic situations where you needed to be on a "desktop" computer to complete the task. Well, I was on my iPad and restricted to that or my phone. Neither of which allowed me to "retrieve" the old files. But now I am back up in Burr Ridge and have - I think - successfully got them back. I say I think because none of the internet posts purporting to tell me how to rescue the files actually worked. But as I say, I think I found a way to make it work.  So here goes. From mid-July:

Entry 1. Why the Brits Call it “Moving House.”

It seems a more realistic description of the process. We, on this side of the pond, simply refer to it as moving. Rather simplistic. I mean, you get up in the morning and set about getting breakfast - you’re moving right? But just moving doesn’t even scratch the surface of what we are going through. Moving house on the other hand, putting a whole house on your back and dragging it across the street, or across the country does seem a better description.

My car now drives itself to Goodwill, the Public Library and the county convenience waste disposal site, while I struggle with the guilt that comes with sending so many trees to the cardboard factories and plastic out into the ocean. I’m hoping the Goodwill and Library trips balance out the trash runs, karma-wise.

There is some good news today. While taking 173 pictures to add to the "for insurance list" I found myself getting reacquainted with things, paintings, masks, glass and crystal - some beautiful bits and pieces that I’d forgotten or just overlooked as they became “normal.”  The same is true with dozens, nay, hundreds of pre-digital photos that has been lurking in drawers and files. Some faded faces and places from decades ago. Even a few from the 1800s, that had undoubtedly survived multiple rounds of “moving house.” Far be it from me to break their streak, so I placed them into our “photo vault” to be hand-carried up to Chicagoland. I’m sure someday, someone will figure out who they are, and how they came to be “one of us.”

Which reminded me of a Curiosity Stream video I saw on crustaceans. I was particularly struck by the hermit crab. This feisty little sea creature goes through life “moving house” by simply slipping out of it's current shell and then appropriating a steady stream of ever larger, fully furnished, abandoned abodes, moving in and calling each one “home.” Ah, some creatures have all the luck.

Cheerio, or Raisin Bran, or Corn Flakes.

I Didn’t Know It Was a Hymn

 I thought it was a song called On My Journey, by The Chad Mitchell Trio, on their 1960 album, Mighty Day on Campus. And, no I didn’t pull that reference off the top of my head - did some online searching for the repeating chorus that was stuck in my head:  When I’m on my journey, Don’t you greave after me, I don’t want you to greave after me. Other Internet sources, I think maybe Wikipedia, does credit the trio with the lyric, but there is more to it than that.

Apparently you can find the “don’t greave after me” phrase in Revelations 1:7, and there is a 1927 bluegrass version by Ernest Phipps as well as a number of versions between then and now. So it is a notion that seems to have a lot of sticking power. It is particularly germane to me these days as I observe the greaving instilled by the passing of my friend Smitty that I wrote about here earlier. 

Despite the fact that he was 93, it wasn’t supposed to happen. But then I suppose it rarely is. Even when “it was a blessing,” one can’t help thinking that it would have been a far greater blessing had one been able to turn the clock back to when “things were OK” and life could go on without the rude interruption of death. But we can’t.

And despite some fascinating theoretical work by brilliant minds, the arrow of time still points forward. And after death comes the sorrow of the living. Smitty was such a happy, positive guy, I cannot help but think that he would not have wanted to be the cause of the grief his passing instituted. But then I realized that, of course, like everything else it was now out of his hands. The task of dealing with death falls to the living.

So I began to think of how I might structure a plan designed to mitigate any suffering my passing would bring to those that “he is survived by.” There is an apparently controversial quote used by, and argued about by singers, poets and philosophers that goes like this: Live everyday as if it were your last one, ‘cause one day you’re gonna be right.”  

The controversy seems to center on the first phrase, with critics contending that it is just pragmatically impossible to live everyday with that kind of existential focus. To me, that begs the issue that concerns me at the moment. That issue is more “other centered.”  What, I wonder, is the impact of your passing on those around you. Something we rarely consider when we are “fine, thank you.”

Most “professional estate planners,” seem most concerned about financial issues, and that is certainly important. But for the living, equally- if not more - important is the strange collapsing of time that death creates. The future becomes today. What we planned, or anticipated for tomorrow, or next month, or next year, becomes now. And the demands of that “imperative now” drags the “survived by” into a confrontation with a “vacated present” that is the very last place they wish to consider.

So what, I ask myself, should I do to minimize the extent of the grief experienced by my “survived bys?”  A few thoughts strike me: clarify, simplify, and communicate. Clarify what I want done. Cremation - ashes to be scattered according to directions left with my significant “sbs” (those “survived by” folks.) Simplify the easiest route to the instructions clarified in “clarify” above. Think, then simplify again. Communicate via any necessary means, electric messages or documents, hard copy, psychic link, (gotta think what might be available when I check out), whatever, the content of clarify and simplify to all “sbs” and any unavoidable legal entities.

And now what is really important. The reasons why no one should “greave after me”: I am, and hope to continue for a bit yet, living a ridiculously lovely life. I have experienced wonderful places, been loved by precious people, had the freedom and opportunities to create in a variety of media, and will hopefully be “survived by” many of those who made that all possible. So once I do carry on over to my next exciting existence, should my “sbs” feel inclined to gather in my name, let them focus on celebrating and remembering that lovely life in joy and do not “greave after me.”