A week in re(d)rospect

Courtesy of spettacolopuro.

Selling a house is tough on the nerves. I go though the day jittery, unable to relax in my home, feeling as if royalty will arrive any second.

The day the For Sale sign went up, a Realtor knocked on the door. I'd asked for an hour's notice, but in this market any prospective buyer is welcome, even unannounced, so I let them in and left. An hour later, I returned and toured my home, trying to see it through the eyes of a stranger. I climbed the stairs, peeked into the bedrooms, smiled at my red kitchen, and squinted when I looked into the bathroom.

What was that on the floor near the toilet?

A raisin?

I bent over. Picked it up.

It was a tiny turd.

On average, it takes 123 days for a home to sell in the Reno area. I don't know if I'm going to last.

Courtesy of davebluedevil.

In one day, Max and Sam yanked more than 100 dandelions out of the front yard, earning 25 cents for each plant pulled out of the soil with its root attached. They emptied their banks, bought cheap MP3 players and spent the rest of the day wandering around the house, plugged in, tunelessly humming along to Owl City's "Hello Seattle."

I had to yank out their ear buds in order to talk to them.

The poop pellet wasn't the worst of the week, though.

Gray, wet weather reminiscent of Seattle drove a stray cat into our garage, where it sprayed.

Where?

Sniff. Sniff.

Here.

Sniff. Sniff.

No, here.

Sniff. Sniff.

I'm hyperventilating from all the sniffing, because the garage is stuffed to the gills and now must be emptied and sanitized, because my husband thinks it can be solved with a trip to the store to buy air freshener. We haul stuff out of the garage and into the rain.

By 10 p.m., my nerves are frayed and the lining of my nose is burned by bleach fumes.

I couldn't smell the flowers he brought home the next day, but they were beautiful.

I couldn't figure out how to load music onto my new, shiny red iPod nano, but he helped me.

I couldn't imagine living without him, even for a month, so I'm not counting the days until May 8th.

The gritty details

Image courtesy of Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

In a daily state of exhaustion I've developed new respect for the plumber, the carpenter and the painter. It's been nonstop, physical work since the decision was made to move my family from Sparks, Nevada to Seattle. I work until I fall into bed, paint in my hair, grime under my fingernails, with teeth too tired to brush.

On Sunday, for example, I wiped out twenty-five kitchen cupboards and drawers, scrubbed behind the washer and dryer, cleaned blinds, washed windows, packed the linens, cleaned my closet and my husbands, and, at 9:30 at night waxed the kitchen floor. Today, I was up at 6 and facing another full day of physical work.

I'm not just digging holes, here. There's a whole lot of thinking in physical work. How does one rehang a closet door? Or make a ceiling fan stop wobbling? Why is the hot water slowed to a trickle? And what the hell is for dinner tonight?

My admiration for the laborer grows with each passing hour this house doesn't sell.

Image courtesy of digital_monkey.

We've been living off a fast-food diet of pizza, tacos, Chinese and burgers, though I've managed to make a pot of spaghetti or stew on the rare day I think about food before the kids wander past with stomachs clutched, moaning that they're starving to death.

The strangest meal I've served this week: pancakes and beans.

Everyone ate it, without a peep of protest.

Max, not happy.

I expected two weeks of frantic house improvements to show on the kids (mainly in the form of callouses developed from daily weeding), but I hadn't anticipated how the moving preparations would give them a new arsenal of words and weapons against each other.

First overheard was an argument between Max and Chaja over the vacuum cleaner.

MAX
Chaja had the vacuum last and she's not putting it away.

CHAJA
You're not done with it.

MAX
Don't tell me how to clean my room!

CHAJA
(running to her room and slamming the door)
Well, don't blame me if a Realtor can't sell our house because your carpet's dirty.

MAX
(running after her while clutching a roll of toilet paper above his head in a threatening manner)
You're going down! You're going down!

And secondly, was 2-year-old Ivan's newly learned phrase.

"Give me a break!" he yelled from the top of the stairs when I asked him to help in the kitchen.

A break. That's what we all need right now. That's what we need from this stinking housing market.

Today, the For Sale sign is hammered in to the lawn. Wish us luck.

Making gaps, letting go

Marcel hugs Sam goodbye before the Amazon interview.

The world shifted slightly once the decision was made that we were leaving. What we believed to be so permanent loosened a little, like a tooth, and life is wobbling. In one week, the freezer and the compost bin were given away, books have been packed, and five gallons of paint applied to walls that showed the grimy hand-print growth of my children. I covered the wobbly signature of a 5-year-old Sam discovered above his bed.

Sigh.

It's hard to dismantle a life.

Max's snowball fight.

Things I've found as the house is torn apart:

Two placentas (one from Ivan and one from a nephew) that were supposed to be planted under trees honoring the boys' births, but were shoved to the back of the deep freezer and forgotten.

One dirty, frozen slushball, which reminded me of Bill Cosby's hilarious story "Revenge" and prompted me to stop cleaning out the freezer and go listen to it again.

Three humongous Costco boxes of plastic forks. (What was I thinking, that life was going to be one endless picnic?!)

And behind beds and bookcases, I found the mummified remains of carrots gnawed on by my children and resembling shriveled umbilical cords.

*

I walk with my kids to school and we calculate how many more times we will travel these seven blocks: seventy-eight. We pass our neighbor Sharon and her dog, out for their morning walk, and tell her the news. Later I go to the grocery store for boxes and tell Chrishan, the Indian immigrant who left a career as a lawyer to move to Reno and bag groceries, that we are moving to Seattle.

These small goodbyes are like shedding skin. Eleven years must be peeled off so I can loosen my grip on this life and reach out and grasp the new one that awaits. When I told my closest friends of the move, my heart clenched into a fist and we cried, so I'm grateful for Sharon and Chrishan, who respond with happiness and only a teaspoon of sadness.

"I will miss you, my friend," Chrishan said.

"I know."

And I smiled at him with eyes that are dry.

At the airport, headed for Seattle.

Marcel will leave for Seattle in May and the kids and I will join him after school ends in June, which means he'll be house hunting alone. Around the dinner table, he asked us what we wanted in our new, rented home.

Max: "A black house with a flame thrower and security cameras."

His father laughed.

Sam: "My own bedroom, my own desk and my own computer."

"More realistic, but equally unobtainable," Marcel said.

Chaja: "A tree big enough to climb and strong enough to hold a swing, plus my own room that's larger than a closet. And no black house."

Me: "A fenced yard safe for children, large windows that will let in lots of gray light, and ..."

"Can I ask for a force field?" Max interrupted.

"You can ask for whatever you want. Doesn't mean you'll get it," Marcel said.

"Okay. Then I want a force field."

Me: "Yes, a force field that will block the pollens and animal hair that trigger your allergies and asthma, Max."

Drop by every Monday for I'll be writing weekly as my family packs, moves 700 miles and resettles itself in Seattle.

A big leap

Photo by Chaja Levy.

My husband's accepted a job at Amazon and we're moving to Seattle. So, I'm taking the next week off and will return April 12th. In the meantime, have a happy Easter!

-Rachael