Things Past

As this process winds down I am struck by the changes that have taken place over the past three decades. Laura and I have been together now for more than thirty years and in that amount of time you accumulate not just things but tonnes of memories, some bound to events, some bound to the people in our lives and of course some bound to the places that you have shared.

Twenty three years ago Laura and I moved all of our things in one day from the apartment we had shared for nearly eight years and moved into our very first home! We were beside our selves with joy but $80k could we manage that? Dad was there that day to welcome to our new home, as we were off getting a load of our things from the apartment Dad was at our new home hanging a treasured sign on our gate that read "The Tracey's". I remember this sign being in our yard in New York with a rooster above it, and it moved with us in all of the the other houses that Dad called home. His adding it to our new home caused an outpouring that would embarrass the mushiest amongst you. It was there so long that the gate now holds a permanent reminder of our time there.

As we emptied our home of more than twenty years we paused in virtually every room and recalled the people and the memories that had made our lives there so wonderful. The Christmases and Thanksgivings spent with Dad in our tiny dining room, the friends we had shared time with and the many many time spent with just our dumb cats in a house that really was filled with love.

While I worked from home long before Covid ever came along we remade our small office into a place that I could work on many computers at once. Upgrading the electrical outlets and jamming more furniture and equipment into one room than should have been reasonable. All while restricting my poor wife to about 3 square feet of work space. I think she complained about that once, but that was it.

The real kicker was our bedroom though. Once we decided that we deserved a king size bed our "master bedroom" got very small very quickly indeed. But my good wife spent years turning sideways to get to her side of the bed, shuffling past the open door and the dresser and our wonderful bed.

 

The house felt strangely quiet and still once this shelf was emptied. For our entire tenure in our house this shelf was the home of "Florence" our antique clock. Florence's steady beat was the heart beat of our home and her chimes filled the entire house because of the stairs behind this shelf. She was the last item we removed. When we successfully restored Florence to life in the "new" house it really did feel like home.

 

I'm sure that Tybalt is missing his access to the great outdoors but we simply cannot afford him this sort of freedom without there being some way to keep him in the yard. He's just too stupid.

He will surely miss his balcony, but he has lots of windows to look out of.

We sat outside for a bit and talked about the time we spent in our own little back yard, it wasn't much but it was ours and it was a bit of an oasis. It was at our patio table that we had our first several meals when we moved into the house because we didn't have a dining room table yet. When we moved in the tree in the yard you could see over the top of now, not so much. Our yard was a haven for humming birds too and we will miss them. We're hoping that we can attract a few to the back yard of the new house.

Finally I just had to say good bye to our friend, we had shared space for so long that is what it felt like. So, goodbye friend, we loved you. Thanks for sheltering us and keeping us warm (and cool) and giving our cats a place to play. We hope your next family enjoys you at least half as much as we did.

And now, on to Things New...