The Moving Day
The new resident, the vacationer, the lost protagonist—all possibilities for further intrigue and ambiguity and chaos, the fruit of novels.
Glendalough, Ireland 2017
Moving day comes and your stuff is ready to go. You’re packed, you’ve got a plan, all that’s left is the labor. Carry your bags, lift heavier than expected boxes, navigate midday traffic, unload those bags, lug those same heavy boxes once again, make a nice pile of your old stuff in your new spot. With nearly all your belongings stored away inside, take a look around. The apartment is freshly cleaned and polished and the new wood floor has a sterile antiseptic smell that—quite surprisingly—provides a welcoming appeal. For the next little while, it’ll be your spot. Temporary, unexpected, but fit to be called home. Moving during a pandemic is tricky, but you’ve managed. Walk down your new staircase, close your new front door, jiggle the latch just to be sure, and then rip the handle right off, so that you lock all your stuff inside your new apartment, just like I did this past Tuesday.
Plenty of characters travel in novels but few characters move. Flying, sailing, driving—those are all rich experiences for literature, and it’s common to meet a new character en route, whether that’s waiting in a bus station or stuck in an airport terminal. Readers feel the tug toward somewhere new, as that plunge of travel is always evocative. The new resident, the vacationer, the lost protagonist—all possibilities for further intrigue and ambiguity and chaos, the fruit of novels. What doesn’t happen too often, however, is a novel that concentrates on the actual process of moving. Typically the goal is the environment the character arrives in rather than the move itself. All the humdrum nonsense of hauling baggage and using new keys is left between chapters. Checking your luggage at the airport is always easier for characters in a novel than for those in real life.
One noticeable exception is A Year in Provence, a memoir by Peter Mayle, where the prosaic, tedious labor of settling into a house is the subject. Repairs are required. Renovations are wanted. Electricians and plumbers and gardeners are called and recalled; there’s confusion, delay, irritation; a British author finds himself in France.
Although the memoir strays quite far from the day of moving, I could argue that his chapters simply stretch the process of moving into an entire year. He’s still adjusting on the final page even though much has happened. As a literary character—even in this memoir—the reversal is the abrupt appearance of insouciance, a casualness that isn’t blind naivety, but comes closer to the simple acceptance of reality. There’s a delicate, almost imperceptible, line here between indifference and playfulness. A good goal might be to operate in the latter while still maintaining a seriousness about life. When the winds pick up in Provence, when the workers are nowhere to be found, when projects are delayed and delayed and delayed, is the reaction boiling hot or merely cool?
Perhaps you’ll note this as a recurring theme throughout much of my writing. It’s a trait worth cultivating, yet the balance remains forever elusive—serious, determined, sincere, with a dash of lightness. Holding the gravity of a situation without descending into petulance. Clear-eyed, fatalist, not forgetting to smile.
This attitude was crystalized for me on a sailboat just off the coast of Brazil, when a slight mechanical problem came about—nothing too important, but an issue that may have required repair. The seriousness of the problem and the prospective outcomes were unconnected to the attitude of the Captain. As the cheerful, energetic Captain explained to me, there’s no reason to ever worry on the water. Until the boat is actually submerged, there’s always something to do, and that something is always easier with a slight smirk. Your expectation should tilt toward the inevitably of a mishap, and this beats finding yourself surprised by a crisis. Just remember that next time you sail, something will surely break. Although the risks and costs and dangers are intractable, your disposition can be as steady as a good wind.
Later that night, I was back in my new apartment, with a shiny new lock installed on my door. Afternoon had brought heavy rains and even heavier traffic just to make the trudge back across town a little more memorable. The daylong journey had come to an end, and I found myself surrounded by unopened boxes, in a mostly darkened apartment, as my lamps were some of the many items still tucked away. When I opened the second box with a pair of scissors, I had to laugh. I looked around the room, encircled by sealed box upon sealed box, and I held my now bleeding hand upward, as I realized that I hadn’t the slightest clue where the bandages were packed.
Read More
