I'm not being too organized about my move. Many people have advised me to take an apartment-hunting trip out there and look at places beforehand. I ignored their advice. Some people in similar situations have moved to their new job already. I'll be showing up around two weeks before the start of classes, which is cutting it a little tight.
But not absurdly so. Especially since I'm starting to prepare for my teaching now, I've been researching apartments on the internet, and I have an appointment with a moving service on Thursday. I'm thinking about road-tripping it, and I got the Lonely Planet USA and am working out which national parks I want to visit along the way.
In some ways I've been thinking about my move for a very long time. I fell in love with San Francisco straightaway, and it's always been on my mind that I would only have a couple of short years before I said farewell to the people and places I care about.
But, for the first time, I am thinking about my move in practical terms. Looking for apartments, for example, was a bit odd. Rents are cheap, and the most attractive neighborhoods in Columbia are all close to the campus, so I can get whatever I want. But as I browsed Craigslist I realized that I have multiple, incompatible notions of what I want. Still, it is my privilege to decide.
I also dug out some of my boxes, and began to triage what I want to keep and what I'm happy to throw away. There's always something sad about this. A couple of my boxes haven't been opened since I packed them in Madison. I looked inside, figuring that surely I'd throw them away, and I threw away some of the contents, but not all. There were notes I took in graduate classes, printouts of draft books not available elsewhere, and so on. They seemed worth saving. For when, I don't know, but I saved them.
There was more. Under my bed was my electronic keyboard, gathering dust. I dug it out and found the power cord (a decidedly nontrivial task). It turns out that I more or less remember Bach's Invention #4.
I also found some karate uniforms, belts, books, and weapons. I haven't practiced karate in the last three years, a fact which brings me at least a little shame. Karate was so important to me for so long, and out here I just stopped doing it. For good reason -- it is very difficult to change dojos, and so I decided to wait until I settled somewhere more permanently to pick it up again, and I may indeed practice again in Columbia. But for now my gi was gathering dust.
And so on. Perhaps after I move, I will take piano lessons (which I have never actually done!) and join a dojo. But then my guitar and yoga mat will gather dust instead. There is no avoiding the dust.
And indeed, to dust I will return too. Packing has reminded me that I am growing older, and that while I can do anything, I can't do everything. I sort of always felt in the back of my mind that in the long run I could do everything.
I am going to die. A sad fact, but the Buddhists teach that it's joyous as well. I can't do a damn thing about it (other than, perhaps, lay off the Diet Coke), and it will not be any less true if I ignore it. It frees me to be bold, to take risks, and to accept each moment as it is.
