Sailing into the Future

A leap of faith? a calculated risk? or an impulsive act of naivete?

For the sake of sounding more mature, we’ll pretend this wasn’t an impulsive act of naivete. Someone recently asked a question on r/Parkinsons (on Reddit) regarding the move they were about to make. What do you look for in a Parkinson’s friendly home? They got a lot of very good answers. None of which we followed as we chose our next home. We’ll have stairs all over the place. I say my incentive to staying in shape is having a 3rd floor writing nook in the attic. My family may have to outfit me with cushions and a helmet for sliding (bumping) down the stairs on my bottom, if I don’t stay in shape.

First we need to get there. The furniture and most of our belongings were packed into moving PODs by the wonderful crew from Angelica Village. The rest of the stuff: what we absolutely needed on the trip as well as the odd things that didn’t get put on the POD for some reason and, while we could have left them behind, we really didn’t want to. This included some papers I didn’t get around to shredding, down blankets (in case we run into another arctic blast), dog beds and dog toys (not to mention the two dogs), a violin, a ukulele, a dulcimer, and a hand carved replica of the Mayflower.

Something would have to give or we wouldn’t have room for us.

I set it on the bird bath while looking for any way at all to fit it in with everything else in the car. In the end, Chris held it on his lap all the way to our AirBnb across town. We are in town a few more nights to tie up loose ends and see as much of the extended family as we can. Once we arrived at our temporary home, we unloaded everything and repacked, this time a little more efficiently. We’ll see how it works when Patrick puts his things in, but for now, the Mayflower is wedged between duffle bags, its sails high above the seat.

The dogs are nervous about being in the car and nervous about the AirBnb. We didn’t sleep well the first night. It didn’t help that the lawyer in Massachusetts (each party has to have a lawyer to close in MA) couldn’t find the POA paper I overnighted to her a week ago. Could I do it again? I swore a lot, then found a place where we could get the form printed from my email, then to the bank to get it notorized.

Fifteen minutes after spending $38 to overnight the form once again, I got the message. Yup, they found it. This is when frustration turned to ludicrousy and there was nothing left to do but laugh.

Our mortgage in Wheat Ridge is paid in full. The money for the new house is safe and sound just where it’s supposed to be and ready for the closing on Monday via POA. When we arrive, we’ll simply pick up the keys from our realtor or the lawyer. It seems so easy!

It took a village to sell this house. We can only look back at amazement at how so many people rallied to our cause. The seller in Massachusetts took the house off the market for 90 days to give us time to sell. Our neighbor, Deb, let us use her house as our landing place whenever we had showings or inspections. My old high school classmate, Marianne, came one day with food and window washing supplies. She washed our windows for us. My sister-in-law, Steph, swept the porch cleaner than it had ever been. Our realtor, Paddy, was oh, so patient. Her son, Mac, came over to look at our computer after the inspector fried it. Paddy’s husband, Kevin, arranged for the sewer to be cleaned. Uncle Doug came to our rescue the last week, and the Angelica Village crew came out and filled pods twice.

Joanne, our neighbor, brought us freshly baked biscotti for the trip and numerous people have offered to let us stay with them when we come back to visit. We will come back to visit, too. When one friend asked if all our treasures were packed and ready to go, I couldn’t help but realize how many treasures we are leaving behind. Friends and family will make sure we never forget our root here in Colorado.

In other words, we were reminded of how deep and how wide our roots go here in Colorado. It’s hard to leave. At times, leaving feels like a betrayal of our community who has loved us and supported us, often when we didn’t realize how much we needed their support. How can we leave our community? We had sad goodbyes this week. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we start on our way across the country to our new home in Massachusetts. Our ship sets sail!

We’re going on an adventure. The Mayflower is going back home.