Bound for Colorado

Inspirational song: Long Way Home from Anywhere (Bruce Robison)

Gee, that's wasn't stressful or anything. Just as hard as childbirth, divorce, and nuclear war all at once, experienced while having a stomach virus. We are on the road now, barely into Georgia as I start to write. We took everything we could fit, and no crevice has been left unfilled. (The off-color way I described it to the Bonfire Leader was "Just relax the muscle.") The cats are stacked on top of the last suitcases and junk in bags, a row of carriers, punctuated by the shrieking banshee in the middle who lets us know every minute and a quarter how much this reminds her of her plane ride here from Asia, and how much she haaaaaaaates traveling. The dogs have the back end of the pickup bed, underneath my vintage table from my grandparents' house, with Murray's cage full of plants behind them. Other than Zoe, everyone is taking this remarkably well. Even the cleaning ladies told me before we left that they couldn't believe how kindly Mr S-P and I were speaking to each other. I assured them we had plenty of chances to yell weeks ago, and now we know it hurts and there is no good reason to make each other feel worse.

My mah jongg friend came over again to paint last night, and she brought her son and his girlfriend. They were an invaluable help, and they stuck it out with is until almost 230 this morning. They even helped talk us back from the edge when we discovered that our touch up paint was not a match for the dark gray, even though it was mixed from the code on the old rusted can. After panicking and trying to scrub it off with magic erasers, I carefully scraped the half quart of paste-thick paint, pretending I didn't see those grains of rust that fell out too, and stretched it just enough to cover the dark spots on three rooms with of accent walls. It worked, but barely. Once our angels of mercy left, we collapsed into bed and slept in until well after 7. We worked all day, with the help of the Bonfire leader and two next door neighbors (one of whom will come back and fix the popcorn ceiling in a few days.) I tried so hard to be done when the cleaning ladies arrived just after lunch, but it still took us over three hours to clear out from there. It felt like two days. I said my goodbyes to the Park grounds yesterday. Today I walked around the house and tried to leave my heart in every room, for the right buyer to find. At the very end, while Mr S-P showered one last time (it was HOT today), I sat in the exact spot on the stairs where I sat first in that house, when we toured it four years ago. It felt like closure.

There has only been one house in my life I loved as much as the Park, and it hurt just as much when that one was sold too. I have to believe that house has much to give the next family who moves in.

One word on the latest tragedy in Charleston. We disconnected our Internet weeks ago, and have been working only on mobile data. The television is in storage. I only heard bits about the hate crime on Facebook, and will have to wait until we are settled to learn more. As we approached the truck stop in Summerville where we weighed our truck and trailer, there was a car dealer with its giant flag at half staff. It hurts in a new and special way to leave when our community is grieving this way. The mother in me doesn't want to turn my back when I could offer comfort. My body is going to Colorado, but I am leaving a big chunk of my soul in the Low Country. I feel a kinship to these people, and I ache for their pain.

And now, what I promised myself I would do once we left the Park: I'm turning the camera around. This is how it felt to sit in that spot one last time: