The process of settling into a new home is made more complicated when you know you'll leave. After four years of homeowning in Virginia, we're renting for a year in St. Louis- so we'll be here 12 months, maybe less, before having to haul and pack and reacclimate once more.
And so the place-learning process -the divining of the best route from the dresser to the closet, the acclimation to the new angle of the morning sun, the repeated movement of the hand from the tea cupboard to the kettle and back- becomes fraught.
I'll learn the best place to catch the afternoon light- but not for long. I'll enjoy the porch- but not for long. I'll tolerate the closet- but not for long.
A sense of impermanence stains things. It seeps into the manner in which you fall in love, the ways in which you make yourself comfortable- or not.
Impermanence shouldn't do this, of course- every home, everything, is impermanent.
But somehow, to love, you need to be able to forget that. And I can't. Yet.
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