River: Transitions
2022-08-26 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearWith the departure of c for Colorado this morning, the cats and I will be alone on Whidbey Island for the first time since, well, just about forever. (Actually the cats are alone up there this afternoon, because I've been down in Seattle all week. They're okay by themselves for a day or two, but I'll have to either stay up there or bring them down this week.)
It's a logistical nightmare because the Studio (ADU) in Seattle isn't cat-safe yet, and there's too much going on and I've procrastinated too much and I might have been able to have E' help when she was here cleaning and I procrastinated asking and and and... And that's not what I wanted to write about.
Because I won't have any humans sharing my living space anymore, and even the studio in Seattle is a detached structure, and now it's just me and the cats and an entire house and garage full of memories and boxes that haven't been opened since two moves ago. And artwork and books I should probably try to sell rather than donate.
And I know that these feelings are perfectly normal in grieving, and so are the problems associated with moving, and I'm just complaining because complaining helps me feel better, I guess. And writing helps me work through things. <old man yells at cloud>
Colleen and I spent most of our lives together surrounding ourselves with beautiful things and interesting books. And now I have no place to put them, because my place is going away. (So did my parents, for that matter, and there's still a large box full of things from Mom's apartment that hasn't even been opened, and art from her collection on the walls. So if anyone wants a four-foot-diameter abstract painting, let me know.)
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Date: 2022-08-26 10:22 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how many books we can absorb, we're still working on integrating my childhood collection.
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Date: 2022-08-26 11:05 pm (UTC)Turns out I still have the spreadsheet that the organizers made when they cleared out Mom's apartment, so...
The thumbnail links to a somewhat larger image. The original is, as I mentioned, 4' in diameter. It looks really great hanging on a wall, especially if you have high ceilings.
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Date: 2022-08-27 01:06 pm (UTC)I'm looking at several large boxes filled with the books I took down from the bookshelves last weekend before the extensive window replacement. Some I'll keep for reference — dictionaries, thesaurus, writing and editing guides, plus some drawing & illustration advice — and some are going into a definitely-to-read pile, but the rest will be sold, donated or thrown out depending on their condition.
I also have a drawer containing music cassette tapes that I've meant to transfer to MP3 files for ages. I have the tape-to-digital unit sitting in my room but have been putting off doing anything. At this point, it's easier to source those in digital form online than go through the rigmarole of transferring the audio and splitting the tracks. I'll only do that for those few tapes that I can't find in any other form. The same goes for the small pile of vinyl records I still have, so far only one is definitely worth the effort of transferring to digital form.
Thankfully, I don't have as much tech clutter as I used to, and that will need thinning out. I keep a few things as backup devices, but there is a lot that either don't work or aren't usable anymore. And my days of hoarding magazines passed a long time ago. Subscribing to physical publications feels so quaint now.
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Date: 2022-08-28 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-30 07:41 am (UTC)It's hard to deal with everything our loved ones leave behind. Getting older isn't for wimps.
Same
Date: 2022-08-30 01:40 pm (UTC)There are boxes that haven't been unpacked since we moved in 5 years ago, and there may be one or two left from when we moved out of the Starport a decade ago.