*Lyrics from Etta James‘ I Prefer You. I heard this on Pandora while unpacking and thought it was particularly appropriate for this next post. That said, I could really use some help in deciding what I prefer.
Taken in early May, this is basically our view of Manhattan from Brooklyn. I mean, from the river, on a boat, with no one in our way. It's pretty spectacular.
It’s official: we’re New Yorkers now. There are no more papers to sign, no more last minute projects, no more ‘oh, wait, where’s that going to go?’ We’re here, and we’ve got to make this little place our home. However, there’s still the matter of finding homes for all that stuff that made the journey from our (in retrospect) giant 1,926 sf house to our teeny, tiny, little Pied-à-deux.
I’m working on it, slowly but surely, tinkering, and rearranging things. Things that may still move some more, things that felt important enough to pack up and haul all the way to Brooklyn from Massachusetts, things that suddenly seem completely unimportant. Moves do that to you: you numb yourself to the disruptive and mind-altering power of a huge life shift, and just mechanically get through the process until it’s over. Well, that’s how I do it. Maybe that’s normal, too.
If I don’t use words then each sound goes unheard…*
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*Lyrics from My Better Self by Tennis from their album Young & Old. I’ve listened to this song at least a hundred times (probably the entire album that many times) and I’m not sick of it, nor did I – until today, reading the lyrics as I sung along – even understand what I was saying. Which is ironic, given what the lyrics for the full song are. So, do this: listen to it WHILE you’re reading the lyrics, then read the lyrics (I noticed that some of the lyrics were not written down correctly – for instance, ‘what is it made?’ is really ‘what is innate?’ – I couldn’t find the official lyrics, so, sorry about that). I feel dumb for not getting it before. “Only the value given shows, that meaning comes and goes.”
BEFORE: With the tenant's belongings I snapped a few pics to see how things were laid out so we could figure out if it made sense to move at all.
Happenings are happening all around me. My brother just got a job in Los Angeles – he found out on a Wednesday, and his gig started the next Monday – and he left NYC for 5 months. All three of my sisters are currently in temporary digs (and in various states of disarray) – though my younger one is more settled, in a way, than the others – and we just moved from our old pied-à-terre to our new one. Let’s call it the Pied-à-deux. Whew, it’s been a bit of a lot. I know that’s horrible English, but it’s true.
And, mere days after we moved our things down one flight I got a call to return to land of the Big House for a meeting with a new client. And three weeks went by before I could return to Brooklyn, and to my overworked, and overtired husband. See? A great big bit of a lot.