It is odd living in a town that feels like I’m visiting it for so many reasons. WR is very white, and the average demographic is downright elderly. I venture out into the town itself to buy food, to buy gelato and eat it on the seawall, to use the landscape as my own sprinting/breathing/striding/riding platform. There’s a tall hill behind my house that I can march purposely up, strengthening legs, and a seawall to run along when it’s not thronged with moseyers. In some ways, the town and the people blur for me, and it’s not that different from living in the country – I orient myself to my view of the water, my sweet house, the hills or road under my feet or tires, google maps to figure out how to get elsewhere, my people in the computer.
One of the effects of this has been to test my mettle on what I can do on my own. There’s been a lot of Assembling required in this move, flat ikea boxes that pop up into bookshelves, bedroom furniture, a little table to trap my keys and glasses at the door so I don’t lose them for good. Too many of the instructions for my furniture started out with a little drawing of the sad man with the aching back and broken pieces of wood around him, much happier when he has a little friend to help him out. Not hard to find symbolism in that.
Nor hard to find symbolism in one of those pieces being the building of my own bed, after I got home from a pleasant but uninspiring online date the other night. Determination, stacks of books, a lot of swearing, especially when I dropped the box spring into the room at large, taking out my alarm clock permanently. But I got it together, along with the dresser and nightstand, my ridiculous snow-white duvet cover,
inordinately proud of myself for figuring out the things that in my previous life have belonged to my competent brother in law, or butch and handy ex. Just me, creating the space that is ineffably soothing, ineffably promising.
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