February 27, 2009.  Friday night when I could have been mosh-ing and screaming along to the David Crowder Band.  Instead I am alone.  Sitting in our new apartment.  A fairly empty place right now.  Tempted to wipe every visible surface clean but unable to do so without any cleaning cloths in sight. Craig is at the old place, tidying up and tossing our meagre possessions in cardboard boxes.  I tossed my students’ papers back into my teacher’s sack. Somehow grading papers do not rate as urgent the minute you arrive the comfort of your home. 

 

The unhappiness and discontentment with our previous apartment in the last four or five months has boiled down to a stressful fortnight.  It has been a fantastic money-saver to share space with a co-worker but we had issues with the apartment itself.  We felt management had not addressed our complaints in a timely and effective manner.  Would you rent out a place with a toilet and bath that gets blocked regularly?  Would you let your children live in black mould?  Could you sleep with a dehumidifier that ran like the 3 am train?  I understand confrontation is uncomfortable, but this felt like cheap TV.  The icing on the cake – the CEO slams his shiny SUV doors on us and drives hurriedly away from the scene; apparently he had an important meeting to rush to.  It makes you wonder whether customer service is in these people’s lexicon at all.  In these last couple of weeks, we searched for a more suitable place to call home.  We fought to get released from the lease contract.  We continued to work in our respective jobs, a little frazzled by life in the background, but hopeful that the tempest in the teacup would pass soon. 

 

February 28, 2009.  We got moved over the weekend, thanks to friends.  It was a blessing to have all our funny boxes and furniture moved, including my beloved piano.  It is Sunday today and most of the boxes are empty again.  Emptied again.  We have changed addresses far too often in the short eighteen months we have been here, almost like trying to find your sea legs.  The boat gets rocked slightly and you cannot find any comfortable position, whether standing up or sitting or lying down.  It is difficult to place the horizon and your stomach somehow end up in your lungs, suffocating, unsettling and confusing you.  

It made me long for the steadiness and permanence of a home.

[Any ideas for decorating walls with vaulted ceilings, please... North Carolina, February 2009]