Dancing With the Universe

We thought we had it all planned out. The move, with all the painting, the packing, the truck, the phone calls, the changes of addresses and utilities... 

Aren't we adorable, making all these plans? We know very well by now that making a plan is like dancing with the Universe and pretending it's our turn to lead.

We worked it all out. We wrote it on our calendar - in ink - yeah, smart. Scribble, scribble, pencil next. Erase, erase. Step back and see what one thing we can do next, while we wait to see how the rest of it lines up. We drove over to our house - our new home - and spent four days painting walls that we thought would take one or two days. A tiny little space. Two rooms. We didn't even paint the bathroom, and we still have all the kitchen cabinets to do. but we painted the heck out of that place, and it looks just grand. Best of all, it looks and feels more like ours. Sad old paint is now replaced with a fresh, lovely finish. I even painted the insides of the closet and the pantry, trim and ceilings and all. 

We headed back to Portland, sore and tired as if we'd just joined a gym, and jumped right into packing up what wasn't already packed, so we'd be ready for the truck and big guys we had scheduled for Thursday. We lined up someone to clean after we left. We forwarded the mail. We said a lot of good-byes. 

And then it snowed.

Surprising all of Portland, we got one of those gorgeous White Christmas kind of snows I actually do dream of each winter. Eight inches of snow in a city that isn't really used to it can make quite a mess. Trees broke all over town. Roads became impassable. Streetcars lost their electricity. Busses needed chains and still couldn't make the hills. Those same hills mocked car drivers who thought they'd give it a try anyway. And our move that was supposed to happen on Thursday (today) got pushed to Sunday, just like that.

So back to the calendar, more erasing and rescheduling, and calling and cancelling, and changing of turn-off dates so we can at least keep electricity and internet going while we're here. We did such a great job of packing, all our dishes and kitchen things are stashed in boxes, and we're just happy to have a couple of restaurants in easy (but really slippery) walking distance. 

We still have our bed set up, and our couch is here, but other than that, we're camping in a forest of boxes, just hanging out and waiting to see if we'll actually be able to move on Sunday. There's a mountain road to deal with between here and the coast, and it's the moving guys' call as to whether or not they want to make the drive. At least the sun is out now, and there are no new storms predicted for the next few days. I think it will be OK. But I'm still not writing anything in ink.

Bright side - we got to slow down and catch our breath a little bit, and we have some time to enjoy Portland before we blast off. We even had time today to take our crappy looking Ikea couch apart and replace the faded black covers with nice new off-white that already looks so much more... beachy. One less chore to do when we get there. Maybe all this waiting is actually doing us a favor.

Yes, the delay is frustrating. But we can't do anything about it, so we might as well just do our best to roll with it. Dancing with the Universe, you don't even need to learn all the steps. Sometimes it's easiest to do like a little kid, standing on someone's big grown-up feet, one arm holding on tight, the other hand out in mid air, guided by the owner of the feet, just riding along while the dance happens on its own.