Two weeks

I’m sitting on the porch, watching the leaves sift down. This view–across the yard, under the copper beech tree, over to the edges of what my children have always used as a baseball field (from here, you’re looking out from the cheap seats between home plate and third, all the way across to the first baseline, with a partially obscured view of the batter’s box)–is awfully familiar. It’s both warm and chilly, and I’ve got a blanket and a cat on my lap for warmth. It’s windy. Sunny, in a hazy, autumnal way.

The porch, as I believe I’ve mentioned about six thousand times, is my favorite part of the house. And today may well be the last day it’s usable till spring–the weather has been chilly–so it’s a good time to move. I’m thrilled to be moving. I cannot even imagine how undone I’d be if the miraculous British renters hadn’t saved me from another winter (and the attendant doomsday feeling that the house would never, EVER sell). Did I mention that I lowered the price again, by a lot, and there was not even a flicker of interest? The realtor is baffled, she says; no one seems to know what has gone wrong. Whatever buyers are out there right now are not the kind of people interested in my kind of house, is the best I can come up with.

Right this second I’m a little daunted, though. I have to pack everything up–I have a big headstart, it’s true, because I stripped things way down to get the house ready to show. But there’s still a rather unfathomable quantity of stuff from eleven years of living here. (Is this what happens to everyone when you never move?) Stuff belonging to my ex-husband, stuff the kids don’t use any more, and of course (I can only blame myself) a million, or perhaps a trillion, books. Bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, linen closets. My office. And there’s no way I can shoehorn everything into the new house, which is one fourth the size of this one. I packed till bedtime last night, and started up again this morning, but my heart wasn’t in it. I drove my boyfriend to the train station, drove home feeling rather dull-witted and sleepy. Cleaned out the spice cabinet, carried another bursting bag of crap out to the trash. The sky was blue. The leaves are turning. I stopped, there in the sun by the garbage cans, and decided what the hell.

It’s a pretty day. The wind smells like leaves. The kids are with their dad. The porch is open. I’ll get everything done–I always do. But let today be the last time I fritter an afternoon away in my favorite spot, with my feet up and a cup of tea and a good book. Let the rest of this particular day–the last peaceful day for quite a while, I suspect–pass in idle solitude.