Moving

It’s been a long time in coming – the process of moving myself out of Manhattan and over to Brooklyn.  Four years just shy a couple of months.  Geez.  New York is New York, right?  Well, except for when you account for the differences = both blatant and subtle – in the various boroughs and then take it another level down to the specific city neighborhoods.  Brooklyn is a whole other world from Manhattan.  And that’s the point.  It’s different and new and moving just knocked all of my routines out of the park.

Patraic, my husband, and I bought a place in Brooklyn.  Exciting, right?  I should be and was except that it wasn’t exciting or thrilling every day leading up to the move.  In fact, there were quite a bit of stressful days and weeks.  And I’m purely talking about the contemplation of physically moving myself, my family and all my “stuff” to a location approximately three miles away.

Funny things happen when two people start packing up, and hopefully, discarding the accumulation of living life.  I worked at a bagel shop my senior year of college – some 20 years ago.  The place was called Bagel Basement.  No crazy play of words here – the shop sold bagels located in the basement of a building located just off Main Street.

I was given a 16 oz. mug aptly branded the company’s name – as a thank you for working there.  I still have it and no, if you’re thinking, it is not a forgotten relic hidden somewhere in the cup pantry.  I am and have always known that it holds great presence in my cupboard – that 1938 built cupboard that is so small and cramped, most of my plate- and glassware have been stored in our “Summer cottage” (a.k.a. Chelsea Mini Storage) for nearly a decade.  We only allowed ourselves four sets of every piece of plate ware and glassware to be kept in our Manhattan apartment.

I never use that Bagel Basement 16oz. travel mug.  Never.  Not once.  I’ve moved since college, nine time.  Every time I made the conscious decision to keep that one particular mug.  And even more, it’s stained brown and kinda dirty.  The kinda dirty that you can’t clean off.  I mean, technically, it’s clean.  But it isn’t.  Obviously, I’m attached to the mug or what the mug reminds me of the time when I was a senior in college.  If I look back clearly, that time wasn’t the happiest of times for me.  In fact, Senior year was pretty difficult and punctuated by uncertainty and high stress.  So, why am I attached at all to the mug?  Even during packing my apartment just a week ago, I shouted out to Patraic, “We’re keeping this mug!”, and he obliged silently, knowing that unstated importance of the mug in our household.

It was when we had arrived at our new Brooklyn abode, while I was frantically trying to open, clear out and stuff the kitchen contents into all the rapidly filling-up cabinets, did I see the Bagel Basement mug, reach for it, racked my brain as to where it would be placed in the new kitchen, that I made the seemingly spontaneous, wholly unselfish and somewhat fraught yet relieved decision that the mug would be pitched.  Thrown away.  In the trash.  No more.  Talk about attachments!

Attachments.  They are sinewy, strong and often invisible at first.  Some are so obvious – like the love one has for a newborn baby; your hot mug of coffee in the morning; NPR blaring on the car radio on your drive into work; or the slippers awaiting you upon entering home for the night.  Attachments can feel good, right?  They can, let’s be honest here.  It’s the accumulation of these things that can either get in the way  or become burdensome as time wears on.

Moving.  That’s the point here.

It’s early in 2011, and the New Year is about remembering last year and simultaneously, letting it go. It’s about looking forward and being hopeful and planning for a great year ahead. Creating goals.  Dreaming about w here your life is headed and then making an intention to realize that dream.  February, in particular, for me, has been about keeping movin’.  Through the bone-chilling arctic winds, the whipping rain, the mounds of snow and through the black lakes of sidewalk puddles.  Through the cold, cold days.  There’s got to be a reason February is the shortest month in the calendar year.  Make it easier for us to bear it and spit out the other side into March.  March just sounds better for getting around.

Moving.  Getting back to the mat.

So, I moved to Brooklyn February 3rd.  Mark my calendar.  After four days of heavy-lifting, unpacking boxes and breaking them down, assembling furniture, laying rugs, and taking one hot, stemming shower to soothe my aching body – I looked in the full-length bathroom mirror I now have (gotta love that) and sized myself up, badgered and pitied myself for a letting my body go – more specifically – for letting my yoga practice slide for months and months and then add them up, years. ..(did I say years?)  I looked myself in the mirror and realized that now, among all the unpacked boxes, wall hangings gracing the floor and an empty master bedroom for lack of a bed, nightstands and lamps, that perhaps now, I could start my way back to the mat, to yoga and to getting back to feeling and then finally, getting fit.  To moving.  It’s as easy as 10 Sun Salutations a day.  10 minutes.  Every morning.  What’s the hurt?

And today, after months and months and years – I took a hot shower, grabbed some  of my OMALA yoga clothes, laid out my yoga mat and gave the universe a personal offering – just before completing 10 Sun Salutations.  How wonderful it felt!

Attachments.  Sometimes clearing the way, even just a beloved mug, and shaking up one’s routine (which by the way, is just another attachment that is working or not working), allows us to do what needs to be done.  Moving.  Just keep moving.

Always,

Kate