jump, float, sink, repeat

I ride these months leading up to our big move like a see-saw. A jarring trade off between leg-dangling excitement and ass bruising stress and melancholy. Up I go into the optimistic sky of possibility, down I go into the drudgery of cleaning and donating and storage bins.

There are facts to be gathered, decisions to be made, plans to be penciled, papers to sign. One moment I'm floating in a daydream about hiking an Alaskan park. The next I'm measuring the washer and dryer to see if they'll fit in a possible laundry room of a possible house.

And all the while life goes on. As soon as one child recovers from a stomach virus, the other child spikes a raging fever. I make plans to meet at least one more time with this friend and that one. The laundry pile never gets smaller, and save the one with the fever, everyone still wants dinner. Especially the dog. Which reminds me, I need to get her shot records together for when we drive through Canada. That is, if we don't take the ferry. Oh, and passports for the kids. And back I am again to the decisions and reservations to make.

I feel a swell of no-reason tears at least once a day. I never shed them, only feel them tickling the inside corners of my eyes.  I've been itching for this move. It's almost here, and I feel a dozen bright colors about it. So why the daily urge to weep? I guess when you mix too many of even the brightest shades, you can wind up with black. It's all so much, and I find myself swirling into a muddy hue.

There's the weight of facts, reality, chores, drudgery. The heaviness of goodbyes, transplanting, coming ungrounded.  And then there's the buoyancy of possibilities, fresh soil, new paths, the chance to be astonished in my old age. I am taking it all in, the heaviness and the ethereality, refusing to go numb no matter how much the muscles burn, refusing to give up entirely on this urge to fly.
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“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled---to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.” ~Mary Oliver

(Thank you, Lindsey, for reminding me of this beautiful line of poetry a few days ago.)

Just writing with Heather of the EO.