Last night, though the beds haven't been moved in yet, the kids and I spent our first the night in the new house. We camped out on the living room floor, and watched "Shrek" on Michelle's portable TV. Then when that was over, and it was 10 at night but we were too excited too sleep, we watched "Up," the only other movie we had available. It was oddly appropriate, at least it was for me, because I have mixed feelings about letting my old house go, and "Up" is a movie about an old man who eventually lets his old house go. Weird.
In fact, I'm having a hard time writing this post because of all of the mixed feelings. Writing about a move that involves so many mixed emotions is similar to writing about alcohol when I've had too many mixed drinks. It's disorienting.
And how are the kids? They're disoriented too. Even Lily is thrown off. I brought her over there with us the other night and she ran circles in the empty living room until she exhausted herself and curled up on Claire's lap. Then, well rested, she got up and did the same thing again. She only relaxed when she ate a piece of Swiss cheese that fell off of my sandwich. Dogs are strange people. For more information on dogs adjusting to moves, read this bit of genius:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html
Unfortunately for the rest of us, eating cheese off the floor doesn't solve everything. It's going to take time. At some point, one of the girls teared up, thinking about the old house, and Christopher mentioned a friend that he's afraid he'll never see again. I thought of the Planetarium. Luling might not have much, but it's got a great planetarium and I've been taking my kids there since they were toddlers. We've seen so many specials on the stars that are visible through different seasons, that we've memorized some of their names. The kids know how to find the star Arcturus by making an arc from the handle of the Big Dipper, and then "spiking to Spica." We'd find them in our backyard on clear nights.
Then I remembered that our new neighborhood had a sky too! So I proposed that we go outside and take a look at it. We stepped into our new driveway to check out how many stars we could see. There's less light pollution there, and it was a clear so we could see clusters of stars. Claire pointed to Venus, shining brighter than the moon.
"That's a planet," she told me.
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"It's not twinkling, and it's where Venus should be."
"Oh...maybe it's Venus then."
"Venus lives here too!" Emma exclaimed.
"Hooray!" I said. "All of the stars and planets from Luling also live here!"
"Hooway!" yelled Christopher, who still does not pronounce "r"s.
"They live everywhere, Mom." Claire said, flatly.
"Well, yes, but isn't it nice to know for sure?"
She supposed it was. And knowing so did make us feel better. Then we got too cold and went back inside to watch "Up."
There have been times that I've wanted to lift up my house in Luling and just move it closer to people I love. Or maybe drop it smack down in the middle of New Orleans so I could be close to the artistic hubbub of things, without having to change houses. That was before my divorce. Now selling the house is part of my divorce grieving cycle, if there is such a thing. I'm renting a new house that I haven't inherited or struggled to fix, a place that I'm not going to look around and see ghosts of people I've lost. Of course that doesn't mean that I won't suffer AT ALL at my new place. I'm sure the suffering will continue, and all of the cheese on all of the floors of the world won't make up for it. But it's different somehow, and I can't exactly explain why. I just know that it has to do with the divorce.
The house is going to a good family, a guy, his wife, and 2 year old daughter. They want to fix it up and everything, and I'm eager to see what he does with it. We'll be seeing it from time to time because I've vowed to take the kids to visit their friends on the street. My sister lives close, so we'll have a good excuse. Besides, we need to get to the planetarium occasionally. There are more stars to see in Mandeville, but we know their names because we learned about them in a dark room in a Luling library.
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