I love to unpack.
My friends will giggle at that, because it’s true on many levels, as I have been ‘unpacking’ things since the 80s -movies, lectures and readings, notes passed, intents and purposes.
But what I mean is when I am traveling, I unpack into places. I will ‘unpack’ even on a long train trip, using the little cubby holes in the sleeper berth for socks and hoodies. I use hotel hangers and drawers (and often find odd left things) and will make compartments and stacks virtually anywhere.
I have always thought of this as an efficiency. It allows me to quickly find what I’ve brought, and I can toss laundry into my bag or suitcase, keeping everything separate and easy to re-pack when leaving.
But maybe it’s really something completely different. It may be that this is a ritual I have developed to feel a belonging in a place, that it is part of mini-nesting and is perhaps a part of my larger nesting,
And perhaps some of the significant dis-ease I have been feeling for quite a while has to do with not unpacking.
For 6 months, my spouse and I have been living out of boxes, in AirBnBs, in the showroom of our home, in a short term rental, and will soon move to a friend’s empty but furnished condo. We sold our home a little over a month ago but haven’t found anywhere to buy. We are in our early 50s and it’s a little harrowing but manageable.
But moving in general is not new to us. We’d met at college in Kentucky, and then quickly moved to Memphis after my father’s death, and then stayed there throughout our 20s.
When we were in our late 20s, I was sexually assaulted by neighbors and found myself unable to stay in that apartment. We spent a few weeks house-sitting for friends who were traveling, and eventually found an apartment downtown. Moving our things, which we’d essentially abandoned, was a furtive late night event. THAT whole thing was harrowing, but manageable.
In between then and now, we have rented 20 apartments in 5 states and owned one loft near downtown Denver. We’ve gotten really great at packing, sorting, organizing, staging moves, managing unpacking…
We really wanted to never do it all again, but Covid pushed us to a move we were not expecting.
And so here we are, 2 weeks out from the end of our short term summer lease with boxes in every closet, a full storage unit, only summer clothes, and no house to buy in our sights.
Although it has technically been true, especially during that assault flight, I have never felt comfortable claiming homelessness. We’ve managed cross-country moves with hotels and corporate housing stays, and spent plenty of time over the years without an address.
And in each of those situations, I have unpacked and set up a home to the best of my ability. I’ve never really put these things together until now, and whatever happens next, I will be careful and intentional about my actions of packing and unpacking.
Now we will move into an extraordinarily generous opportunity, and again housesit for a friend. We are taking a break from looking for a home right now. The process of falling in love with 6 places and losing all of them has been exhausting.
And so we will stop. Breathe. Re-group.
Each of these times of rest, the sanctuary given freely and openly, has made the next move possible. Each has been an immense privilege and gift. I know that my own privilege and status in our American caste system has made all of it possible, but I also know how easy it would have been to reject these offers of help along the way.
This whole process has been surprisingly generative for my marriage. We have been leaning into our own gifts (I read neighborhoods and he reads buildings) and bringing those things to our choices and assessments and doing it all as a team.
I have been on edge for a long time, but as has frequently happened in my life, it is probably those cracks and fissures, those growing edges themselves that have allowed the progress and change. I am looking forward to a brief respite, and then on to finding a home for the next few decades, a place where we can really unpack.