To Narnia In Ill-Fitting Shoes
Jun. 21st, 2013 01:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_pretentiousI can get the kids to help me pack upstairs--help in the sense of staying on the second floor where I can hear what they're up to--by opening any closet door. Gareth shouts "Narnia!" and runs in so hard he bangs all his body weight into the back wall. Conrad, of course, follows suit. Before I packed my good teaching clothes, I suppose we could say he followed suits, plural.
Lucy and her siblings ventured into Narnia in oversized fur coats that reeked of mothballs. If my boys dressed for always-winter-never-Christmas in my closet, they'd have to settle for my doctoral robes, which smell better but wouldn't be nearly as warm. Grown-ups' footwear fascinates my kids, so they clonk around the hardwood floors in the few remaining dress shoes from my classroom teaching days. I picture Mr. Tumnus's faunly hoofprints in the snow alongside the blurred prints of two pairs of chunky-heeled pumps. Really, it'll be no loss when those shoes get left in Narnia. Perhaps talking field mice will make a good village of nests in them.
Narnia feels more real than this fact: Three more weeks, and we're out of this house forever.
The MLS listing goes live tonight. On Monday, we'll have a screwball comedy set piece's worth of characters coming all at once: the realtors, to take photos; the gutter repair people, with tall ladders worthy of a Buster Keaton routine; the first prospective buyers and their agents; moving company representatives, to cook up estimates of the cost of moving all our goods that aren't already in storage. I have to be here to greet most of these people, so the kids will be here, too. I imagine it will play out sort of like the climactic scene in One, Two, Three, with me playing James Cagney's role. It's a marvel of accelerating pace, that old film, and the skittering score of the fastest scenes runs in my head on a daily basis.
Slow things fall out of my life, or get packed up until there's a new house to live them in. I've made my farewell-for-the-summer post on Black Gate, said my last goodbyes to nearly all my students, and glumly accepted that the parts of my mind that write fiction have retreated into their cave to wait out the storm. The parts of my mind that handle logistics envy them the retreat.
Gareth wants to know if we can move to Narnia instead of Maryland. That would be farther from family even than Jersey, and I can't vouch for the Narnian public schools, so no. It's starting to sound pretty good, though.
Lucy and her siblings ventured into Narnia in oversized fur coats that reeked of mothballs. If my boys dressed for always-winter-never-Christmas in my closet, they'd have to settle for my doctoral robes, which smell better but wouldn't be nearly as warm. Grown-ups' footwear fascinates my kids, so they clonk around the hardwood floors in the few remaining dress shoes from my classroom teaching days. I picture Mr. Tumnus's faunly hoofprints in the snow alongside the blurred prints of two pairs of chunky-heeled pumps. Really, it'll be no loss when those shoes get left in Narnia. Perhaps talking field mice will make a good village of nests in them.
Narnia feels more real than this fact: Three more weeks, and we're out of this house forever.
The MLS listing goes live tonight. On Monday, we'll have a screwball comedy set piece's worth of characters coming all at once: the realtors, to take photos; the gutter repair people, with tall ladders worthy of a Buster Keaton routine; the first prospective buyers and their agents; moving company representatives, to cook up estimates of the cost of moving all our goods that aren't already in storage. I have to be here to greet most of these people, so the kids will be here, too. I imagine it will play out sort of like the climactic scene in One, Two, Three, with me playing James Cagney's role. It's a marvel of accelerating pace, that old film, and the skittering score of the fastest scenes runs in my head on a daily basis.
Slow things fall out of my life, or get packed up until there's a new house to live them in. I've made my farewell-for-the-summer post on Black Gate, said my last goodbyes to nearly all my students, and glumly accepted that the parts of my mind that write fiction have retreated into their cave to wait out the storm. The parts of my mind that handle logistics envy them the retreat.
Gareth wants to know if we can move to Narnia instead of Maryland. That would be farther from family even than Jersey, and I can't vouch for the Narnian public schools, so no. It's starting to sound pretty good, though.
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 12:39 pm (UTC)Is it possible to schedule a small packet of time here or there, so that your slow things don't fall so far down, or you can visit them, or something? Often the more difficult life gets, the more important are these avenues of creation.
Know what? I believe you know this already and you were just trying to introduce some scary tension into your story. Or imagine a worst case scenario, for planning purposes, etc.
I should take my own advice, and spend a little time each day noticing amazing juxtapositions of texture, light, space, but there's cool stuff in nearly anything I look at. I guess the skill comes in deciding.
Can you establish some telephone hours?
no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 01:39 pm (UTC)I've already started missing your terribly and you haven't even gone yet. I'll call you and see when we can have a visit since this is the Last Day of First Grade for my older one.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 10:15 pm (UTC)very best wishes for navigating the moving chaos.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:27 am (UTC)Telephones are very difficult anytime the kids are awake. The kids can sense that our attention is taken up with whatever conversation we're having on the phone, and then all the Forbidden Behaviors come out at once, including ones that don't seem to have any intrinsic appeal beyond misbehavior. Yesterday while I was talking to the realtor, the boys started laughing their heads off in the next room, and I caught them eating Kleenex. Seriously, guys, Kleenex? I guess my chocolate stash must be better hidden than I thought.
Email's the best bet, at least until the Big Move is accomplished. I have high hopes for getting the hang of Skype once the unpacking's done.
If you wanted to come by and keep us company while we pack, we'd love to have you.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:29 am (UTC)And for playdates, an enthusiastic Yay!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 06:00 am (UTC)