This is something of a time capsule—a diary entry I was working on almost exactly a year ago. Somehow I just never found the motivation to tack on the conclusion and post it, but now does seem an appropriate time to finish the job in recognition of the anniversary it represents. So here is what I wrote in early September, 2008:
A friend of mine, Jim, had a singular experience about 15 years ago. He had built a home on high-bank, waterfront property on Bainbridge Island, and at 3:00 a.m. one New Year’s Day he got to ride that house down the cliffside to the beach. This was not, mind you a poorly constructed house. Jim had built it himself, by hand, and because he is German he is morally and culturally incapable of shoddy work. It was a beautiful and well built house.
Unfortunately, he had not built the bank below the house, and so, when weeks of rain had sufficiently lubricated the clay beneath the hillside topsoil, the whole thing simply slipped away like a tablecloth and stack of dishes off an up-tilted kitchen table. Jim awoke just as his home weighed anchor, knew immediately what was happening, and says his first thought was, “I guess now I get to see how well I built it.” How’s that for pride of workmanship? When was the last time you heard of a homebuilder taking one of his structures for a nighttime slide down a cliff and regarding the experience as a good, if unexpected, chance to test the soundness of his carpentry?
I had a similar feeling to Jim’s this past weekend as I helped our son, Benjamin, settle into the house he will share with four friends this school year: “I guess we get to see how well we raised him.” Not to suggest that Ben is beginning a slide down a cliff to a rocky beach. I’m saying merely that he is now, to a far greater extent than ever before, on his own, and we, his parents, are commensurately less able to shield him from life’s pains. Which is what we’ve been working towards all these years, of course—a sensible, responsible, self-reliant young man. Nonetheless, our arrival at this point does cause a pang and gives one that over-the-falls-in-a-barrel feeling.
In the weeks before the move, small tags of masking tape began appearing on virtually everything we own, marked with a “B” if Benjamin was taking it, or with a ludicrously knocked-down price if it was for our garage sale. That was Labor Day weekend, by the way, and it netted us about $400—10% of that in quarters.
Then, this weekend, we shoe-horned all of Benjamin’s chattels—and those of his friend Chris—into a 17-foot U-Haul truck for the three-hour trip to Bellingham, up near the Canadian border. Ah, U-Haul. “Adventures in Moving”—do you remember that slogan of theirs? At the rental agency I looked for that familiar phrase but couldn’t find it anywhere; it’s completely gone. Apparently U-Haul finally has realized that the last damned thing people want when moving is “an adventure.” They might be looking forward to brighter days in a new location (perhaps where there is no warrant out for them), but adventure en route is not the desideratum. You must have noticed that only tourism-related businesses use the “adventure” motif in their ads nowadays, and even they employ it with discretion. You will never see, for example, commercials or billboards promising “adventures” in accounting, or in obstetrics, or laser-eye surgery, or divorce law. There’s good reason for that.
Nonetheless, I did remember the U-Haul ads of yesteryear, and for auld lang syne I began our trip with a bit of adventure by using the 17-footer to knock over the rental agency’s mailbox. The U-Haul lady was very nice about it. The box evidently takes quite a thrashing, and she keeps a maintenance fellow on retainer to come re-set it every second or third rental.
Among the above-mentioned chattels—computers, beds, pots and pans, kitchen table and a third-hand bicycle—was a leather sofa, purchased in July for $10 at the Rotary Auction. It is the perfect sofa for a student house, in that it clearly has seen all that life can throw at a piece of furniture and remains, if not unscathed, at least recognizable still as a leather sofa, now past all caring what happens next. It is extremely comfortable, and has an air of being ready for anything, from a Superbowl party to an unplanned pregnancy…
And, well, I’m afraid that was as far as I got in writing up our 2008 adventures in moving, probably because I recoiled in instinctive horror at the implications of that final sentence and could go no further. I am gratified to report that Benjamin did enjoy a successful (i.e. no unplanned pregnancies) year following his installation in the rental house, and managed to cram what was left of his household items into storage for the summer. He did this on his own because his parents had irresponsibly fled the country in the meantime, leaving him to fend for himself. As of this writing, he is touring Europe, but will return at the beginning of September to share a different home with a different set of friends for the next school year.
And one year on, I am confident that, whatever lies ahead, Benjamin will do as well as my friend Jim and land where he lands, upright and exhilarated by the trip. On second thought, if I know Benjamin, he’ll arrive at the end point reclining on his $10 sofa.
--originally posted 9/2009
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