Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

An old friend, the writer Rick Christman, had the habit of repeating odd, offbeat lines from his favorite books. He had a finely tuned ear for the absurd, and after reading Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, he often found occasion to repeat the line, "Where am I?" said Dwayne. It is those very words, in Rick's gravelly voice, that have been playing in my head over the last couple of days.

We've just moved, obviously. We've got 90% of the boxes unpacked, the walls that needed new color have it, and things are reasonably livable. Yet it still seems like a (wonderful) place we're just visiting, although every surface is covered with a film of black dust. I'm not sure how much we tracked in or created with the move or how much was there before. The dog lies down somewhere and then gets up a few minutes later to find somewhere else to lie down. She looks at us, clearly wondering, "When do we get to go home?"

I'm getting used to WiFi. Sometimes it is fast and great, and sometimes it is so slow I can't watch a You Tube video. Something to do with the old building or my router is about to go or maybe sunspots. I know nothing. My ipod was dead on arrival, but then, following the advice of a Facebook friend, I managed to revive it, which seems nothing short of miraculous.

I guess the main thing is that we made it through last week, which aside from our own move, included the necessity of moving my 90 year-old mother-in-law into assisted living. And learning that my daughter and son-in-law's very bad, very lovable dog (she was never bad to me) needed to be euthanized. It continues to amaze me, the way a pet can be the repository for so much feeling we don't let ourselves experience anyplace else. I cried more for that dog than for anything I've been through in the last few years. It could have been the dog herself -- the complicated mess of loving an animal that loves and trusts you, in spite of behaviors that make it close to impossible for it to be around strangers or children. Or maybe the dog was merely a pretext to feel a bunch of backlogged grief and sadness over life's harder necessities.

Things change. People move. Life goes on. "Where am I?" said Dwayne.

Bathroom Ruminations

You know, at our house -- our old house, that is -- I had everything pretty much the way I wanted it. I thought that this morning as Frank and I struggled (not too hard and with some success) to be civil about sharing our small bathroom space. Timing, the placement of toiletries and equipment, it all becomes critical to peace and harmony. Marriages have broken up over bathroom strife, and I am happy to report that so far I am more upset by all the boxes that still litter the living and dining rooms than I am by the tiny, inconveniently arranged, though otherwise rather lovely bathroom.

I thought about our old house this morning, and the fact that in it I had most everything exactly the way I wanted it, without regret or longing. I have no desire to go back. It occurred to me that a certain amount of inconvenience was exactly what was needed in our lives. Don't get me wrong. We have more than adequate living space in a beautiful building where we can walk or otherwise easily get to everything we need. We have more than enough comfort and convenience. But the changes and compromises are throwing us back on our resources. We're forced to think harder and more creatively about what we're doing along with the consequences of our choices day to day.

Living consciously is never easier. The point, I think, is to feel more alive.

So, the painter will be here in a few minutes, and I have more boxes to unpack. Cheers.

New Digs

There are adjustments in moving to an 80 year-old apartment building after some 30 years living in a house. For one, you can't put the cable where ever you want it. The positive spin we're putting on that is that it promotes better sleep hygiene not to watch TV in bed. Not to mention more time to read. And then there are the radiators, which are so cool on one level, but strange to get used to, pouring out waves of heat at appointed morning and evening hours, squealing as the steam inside them first gets rolling.

Our little beagle is nervous as a cat with all the new noises, though she really likes the new neighborhood with all its unfamiliar sniffs and also lots of students who are careless about dropping food on the ground. She can't see the sidewalk from our windows, though, and I can tell this disorients her. How can she survey her domain without a view of the sidewalk?

We have enough boxes unpacked for me to see the home that is starting to emerge, and enough still stacked against various walls for my internal chaos meter to jump from time to time. But this is happy stuff. And the writer in me is already feeling much less anxious as I get a few words down on the page.

I'm afraid that will have to be all for now. The painter needs to get in this room to prep the walls for some paint. Later.

Here We Go

We're in the home stretch now. Most everything is packed and what is left will be dealt with over the weekend. There are still half-filled boxes all over the house, but I think we're almost there. This picture cannot fully document my internal sense of chaos, but it gestures towards it anyway. I'm taking down my computer this weekend, so this will be my last blog until I'm up and running again, which means, considering the cable company, an old building, and the usual snafus that occur in times like these, I may not be up and running until the middle of next week.

But Not For Long

Michelle Wildgen's new novel But Not For Long is the best sort of literary novel: sure in its voice, rich in its characters, and with enough plot to keep you turning the pages. In a different publishing era, you would be hearing a lot about a novel this good, and let's hope it catches on by word of mouth, because it deserves to.

But Not For Long gives us three days in the lives of three members of a sustainable foods co-op in Madison, Wisconsin as the world around them appears to be inching towards apocalypse. The spring has been too warm, causing extended and unexplained power outages. There are gas and food shortages too and a complete lack of reliable information coming from government. These eerie, unexplainable events in the external world both reflect and exacerbate Hal, Karin and Greta's internal struggles as they come to grips with change and loss in their own lives.

Each one of them is reaching in his or her own way for comfort and grounding, a renewed sense of connectedness to themselves and the people around them. For Hal, after recently losing his mother and his father's retreat to a cabin in the north woods, it is difficult to find meaning anymore in his work for an organization that feeds the ever-growing ranks of the needy. Karin struggles to find more than fleeting connection to the people in her life while Greta has come to the co-op after leaving an alcoholic husband who chooses the first night of the blackout to show up drunk on their doorstep.

The book opens with the unforgettable image of a dock on Lake Monona loosened from its moorings, and a dog stranded out there on the water. Onlookers speculate where the dog's owner had gone and why he left the dog out there like that. There is something so ordinary and yet so ominous in the image of the abandoned dog, the loose pier, the unknown depths of the lake, and the image sets up perfectly the tone of this novel that continues with each new incident to supply a network of subtext that makes you recall images long after you've finished reading.

Michelle Wildgen gives us a stunning meditation on the state of our lives, and yet the large themes of post-industrial dystopia, climate change and sustainable living, alcoholism and aging never overshadow the individual and specific journeys of her characters. They feel completely real -- vulnerable, flawed and reaching for something outside of themselves -- never as mere props in a morality play.

I read this book as compulsively as a page-turner, but with a deeper sense of life in the bargain. Call it sustainable reading, a story that is so evocative of our times and so beautifully rendered that it stays with you, actually nourishes your heart and soul for much longer.

Tomorrow and tomorrow . . .

We're about 75% dismantled and packed, I would guess. There are another 10 or so boxes of stuff scattered around the house that haven't made it yet to the garage. The back porch is filled with lamps and end tables we couldn't get any takers for on Craigslist. I suspect we still have more stuff than the new apartment can hold, but we'll have to jump off that bridge when we get there.

This morning I did the crossword puzzle with more concentration than I have mustered in days. The crossword felt critically important today, filling those little squares competently and completely. A little order in the chaos of life, which this weekend also included another emergency room visit, this time with Frank's ailing 90-year-old mother. I can say this for UW Hospitals: They treat old people very nicely, if not quickly.

The thing about having problems when you're old is that no one particularly blames you for them, the way they do for a younger person with chronic illness or an emotional handicap. There is no vague whiff of disapproval. People feel free to be genuinely kind.

In the meantime, I am, in bits and snatches, trying to finish Michelle Wildgen's wonderful new novel But Not For Long. I have so much to say about it, but I want to be completely finished. Too many interruptions at the moment. Maybe tomorrow. We'll all still be here tomorrow, I think.

Sing Out Loud in Public Places

I defy you, my dear readers, not to be cheered and heartened by this video from Improv Everywhere performing their Grocery Store Musical to a group of unsuspecting shoppers at a Queens, New York grocery store. The shoppers' faces are equally, possibly more entertaining than the performance itself.

I watched it this morning still groggy from sleep, grumpy about another day of gloomy weather and tedious tasks to accomplish, completely unprepared for the rush of delight that swelled in my chest. It reminded me of a Co-Counseling workshop I attended years ago in which the leader insisted that learning to sing out loud in unexpected public places is transformative. I can believe it now.