And yes I know they are called cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere. Audrey and I play a thought exercise called the Hurricane Game. If a hurricane came and destroyed all of your stuff, which of your possessions would you buy an exact replica of with the insurance money?
When we play this game, the answer is: hardly anything.
Today was our Moving Sale. We don’t want to spend money shipping all of our stuff from the North-West Hemisphere to the South-East Hemisphere, so we are trying to sell it all. Our hurricane game has come to life - Hurricane Australia.
We sold a lot of stuff today. Our most asked about items were two sets of Pottery Barn bunk beds that have been through a lot of kid years. I guess we asked too little for those. The next most inquired about item was a set of five Ikea chest of drawers and five giant bean-bag chairs stuffed with sofa padding.
The second photo is after our hurricane. The objects we chose to save (either by having friends babysit or by paying for storage) include a dining table we had a friend make with rescued wood and a welded stand, our latex mattress, a vintage banana box, a coffee table and chest Audrey made in high school wood shop class, my martini shaker, the Vitamix, some Waterford, some hand crafted flatware and a rubber yoga mat. These are our favorite things,used daily, that feed our soul. (’Feeding our soul’ is story for another time).
It was a tough day. We partied too long last night saying goodbye to friends. We lifted furniture all day long in the hot sun. The front of our house may be the hottest point in Hood River. Our driveway, garden and house form a sort-of parabolic shape to reflect the summer sun to chest height. We were out there for 8 hours. Chatting up strangers drains me of all energy - introvert engineer here. Watching your stuff go out into the world still takes some psychological toll, even once you realize you wouldn’t replace it after the hurricane. The empty, echoing house imposes a subliminal survival stress. Our cocoon of safety, the structure our stuff provided, like a barricade, is gone now. The kids are acting strange. They can’t communicate that they are stressed through words, probably aren’t even aware of it, but they are sleeping on the floor tonight and that has to mean something.
When I finally closed up the garage, I think I was dehydrated. I just laid down on our cold, hard Mexican ceramic tile (name the movie quote) in our empty living room to recover a normal body temperature (37C to my American friends).
All this, and we still don’t have a departure date yet. Last Visa appointment on Tuesday. Just waiting, like that ninth month of pregnancy. Waiting for Godot. No Exit.
