I’m moving. 🚚 This will be 2 times in the past year. I don’t know about any of you, but buying a house these days means getting lucky with the seller AND spending a fortune. It’s also a big gamble. Given today’s market, real estate could falter and values drop by greater than half. But given the rise and fall of real estate prices in the past 50 years, it’s unlikely. They might come down (witness 2008), but I don’t think they’re crashing any time soon. (For those of you who want a house and can’t afford one? I know where you’re at. I was there for decades. I know it’s frustrating.)
So today, we packed a smallish truck and moved our stuff about 150 miles from where we were in Seattle. We would have tried to buy in the Seattle area. But unless you’ve inherited, you’re extremely rich, or you’re willing to work 3 jobs, Seattle’s too expensive.
About Moving?
If you haven’t moved recently, I don’t think this will be a surprise but: IT’S TIRING.
Between stuffing your possessions in boxes and hauling it around (3 flights of stairs, by the way), it’s a huge physical and mental stressor.
Now me? Ever the creative, obsessive type, I didn’t tear down my studio until yesterday at 9:00 PM. That’s because I was all about this song I’m working on. And it took about two hours to pack the whole of room once I put the song away. But c’est la vie.
Now comes putting it all back together. That’s tomorrow.
Minimalism?
I’ve thought myself to be a non-materialist and minimalist for at least 15 years. But when I see our material footprint fits into a 15 ft U-haul truck, I must re-evaluate. It’s not like there’s tons of extraneous knickknacks or clutter. There are six guitars, two keyboards, five computers, chairs, mic stands, music stands, microphones, monitors, chords… and on and on. Fifty percent of it is MUSIC.
Upshot: I don’t know that I’d survive well as a Buddhist nun in a monastery — or any monastery, actually.
(In the Thich Nhat Hahn tradition, I’ve heard monks and nuns keep their belongings down to two suitcases. 😳 Me? I could have two suitcases for each subject — i.e., music, clothing, bathroom, kitchen, etc. Well, maybe two suitcases and a LOT of other cases for instruments. Otherwise, it’d be pretty HARD for me unless I secretly rented a storage space for everything else and didn’t tell anyone — kind of the antithesis of being a spiritual monk or nun. LYING. 🤥. I’d make a bad nun.