The big day approaches

For two days we drove south from Scotland to London. In London Sarah dealt with her old attic full of stuff, loading it into the same van into which we them emptied our storage locker. We saw some friends, and saw some family, and very briefly revisited our old neighborhood.

Then for two days we drove south, to and through France. The ferry was fun for Kepler, and he was a spectacularly good boy in the car for so many long hours. The cornfields slowly gave way to forests, and then the vineyards appeared, until they dominated the landscapes. We were getting closer. We could feel it.

And now we're in Bordeaux. The moon is huge and orange, a glory of positive adumbration. Because tomorrow, after years of on-and-off searching, in London, in Sydney, in Singapore, in France; after months of waiting, after organizing shopping and shipping, logistics and transits; after a whirlwind across Europe and across the Atlantic, tomorrow, finally: we get our house.

We get our house.

I can't believe it. So much hunting and planning, finally about to pay off, not with any kind of conclusion, but with a new beginning, the start of a whole new adventure, a fresh chapter in the future memories of our lifetimes. We're all incredibly excited.

Of course there won't be a thing in it when we occupy. Our stuff from the UK isn't due to arrive for another few weeks, and our stuff from Chicago will take even longer. So tomorrow morning, we're off to Ikea. At least to have a bed and some mechanism of breakfast to get us through our first night and morning in our new home.

And through our own thrill at being here, our appreciation of the quality of the light and the feeling of the air here, our giddy anticipation for the events of tomorrow, I also wonder about the vendors, possibly spending this night, their last night in their beloved home, also excited, but tinged with reminiscence. They've no doubt dealt with many of the same logistics, the packing and moving, watching their house empty into boxes which then get driven away to some future destination. It's no doubt exciting for them as well, but there's also room for melancholy too. A last night in a well-lived home is an occasion to pause and reflect on what has happenned between those walls.

I always used to like it when I'd move out of a flat, the echoey emptiness, the clean bare walls. And because I never managed to empty the flat until the very last moment, I never got a chance to really enjoy it. And so, when I moved out of my flat on Henderson street in Chicago, back in 1995, I gave myself a false deadline, I moved out a week early. Then for a week I got to camp out in my own home, feeling the spacious blankness of the rooms. It was a real pleasure.

I imagine our tomorrow-house's current occupants picnicking by candlelight on their unfurnished verandah floor, sharing stories about domestic experiences and house-bound memories. Tonight the house is full of their ghosts, and tomorrow, it will be clean, blank, ready for a whole new spate of experiences and ghosts and memories. Ready for us. Tomorrow night it'll be we who picnic there, we who camp with nary a stick of furniture available. And soon enough we'll reverse their process, unpacking the boxes, and making the place our own.

I'm happy for us, and I'm delighted for Kepler. After three years of nomadism, he's finally going to have a home. Stay tuned. The adventure is only just beginning.