Saturday, June 6, 2026

Mulling over the day

As I compare what it is like to move by myself compared to what it was like while I was married, I have made the comment several times that my ex-husband was always the expert on maximizing space as we loaded trucks.  That is what little I thought he brought to the moving experience.  But you should have seen how many boxes I managed to fit in my car last night!  Maybe he wasn't the only one with those skills.

The alarm went off at five this morning.  I was actually in a deeper sleep so it jarred me awake which was surprising because usually I'm naturally awake around that time.  My car was all packed from the night before, so I showered, dressed, poured a thermos of cold brew, grabbed a bagel, and headed out the door.

With my car packed full of stuff, I had turned on sentry mode last night and I was surprised there was only one sentry event, a security guard a little after 2am taking a photo on his phone of something away from my car.  It's a busy parking garage.  I'm expected others to walk close enough by at some point to trigger it.

I was on the road by 5:45 a.m.  The drive feels like nothing these days.  I don't even take the time to put on music or an audio book.  I just let my mind fill the silence of the miles.  When I arrived there was actually an EV charging space available so I plugged my car in and then discovered that a huge benefit of the complex wide internet is that I could connect my car to it so it could update anytime I was parked in the garage.  Gone are the days of manually connecting my phone hotspot and waiting for the update to download.  

By lunch time, I had emptied nine boxes of kitchen stuff and put them away in the cabinets.  I then walked over to try a Thai restaurant a few blocks from my place.  They had converted an old Victorian home so it was a space with a lot of quirks.  It was interesting and the food was so good.  I then walked down Peachtree Street (one of the many Peachtree streets).  I had hoped to buy a new tweezer at the CVS and maybe a toilet bowl brush.  The tweezers were all locked down with no associates in sight to access them and I didn't find a toilet bowl brush so I just continued on.

There are no words for the awe I experienced walking the streets of Midtown.  The sights, the sounds, the people, the energy, it was all unlike anything I had ever experienced.  Two men held hands confidently as they walked.  On several separate incidents, I saw someone dancing on the sidewalk to music spilling out from a restaurant.  And as I walked (and later drove), I noticed all the ways they intentionally made things pedestrian friendly.  The signs of inclusive love, freely and authentically expressing joy, and encouraging a bit more sustainable life align so closely with what matters to me.

Then I spent the afternoon putting together a closet organizer and getting my closet organized.  It's all coming together so nicely!

Oh, and I moved my two quite large rocks.  I was thinking as I loaded them into my car last night, these are probably the oddest things that I have continuously moved (at least 12 times) since childhood.  When I say large, I have to brace myself to pick each of them up.  There's a memory behind each of them.  Rocks have always helped me remember my connection to the Earth.  I have a small one at my desk that fits in the palm of my hand.  Sometimes I set my bare feet on these large ones to feel their coldness and rough texture.  I'll have to find the right place for them in my new space once I start arranging the furniture.

By that point my closet was organized, my car was almost done charging and I was tired.  So I loaded up my car with all the boxes I had emptied and got back on the road.  Traffic was smoother than I have ever experienced in the afternoon.  I made it back in about 2 hours and 20 minutes which is about the fast it can take and comparable to the mornings I leave before sunrise.

What a day it was!  Productive, exhilarating, yet exhausting.

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