- At November 12, 2007
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Moving Time
9
Moving Time…You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here
Moving again? Well, by now it’s become old hat. Since 1998 I’ve moved…let’s see, Cincinnati to Virginia, Virginia to Seattle…9 times. I’d like to point out that’s nine times in less than ten years. I don’t recommend that kind of behavior. It’s expensive and really puts your writing life into disarray. For instance, right now I’m desperately grabbing copies of Margaret Atwood, Dorianne Laux, and Matthea Harvey’s books for my reviews, in case I need to quote something from one of their earlier books, as my husband deconstructs the poetry bookcase and packs my books (there go the anthologies!) into bins. All around me are boxes, boxes with shoes and dishes and life’s every day chutney-of-stuff. Hard to write when the dust hasn’t settled, the dust of the mind, I mean.
I moved around a lot as a kid, too. My Dad, looking to land that ever-elusive tenure-track professor of Engineering position, moved us (four kids and wife, plus, sometimes, animals) from – let’s see – from Missouri to Yale U to UCLA to U of Tennessee to U of Cincinnati, where he still teaches. As a kid I used to think everyone moved as much, and as dramatically (my parents often finding a place to live at the last minute, giving us a week or two notice, packing ourselves into moving trailers, driving 21 hours a day on route to the new place) as my family did. When I found out there were people who stayed in the same place their whole life, I felt sorry for them. I thought they were really missing out – the new friends you’re forced to make, new scenery to admire or grumble about, the new horizon – plus the whole self-reinvention thing you get to try out.
Now, I’m not so sure. I think moving so much may have done something to my mental processes, the way I process memories of places and people. I often don’t put as much mental or emotional energy into getting attached to new places or people as I probably should – investing the kind of emotion neccessary – after all, in the back of my mind, I’m pretty sure I’ll be leaving as soon as I’ve started to get used to them. Everything physical is temporary – that is a lesson I have definitely learned by heart.
So will the new place be Home? In the words of OK Go, “So here I go, here I go, here I go again…”
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
A. D.
Do you think the whole moving this is pathological? Do you think it has something to do with why you find yourself a writer, with the invention/reinvention and detachment/detached perspective, etc.?
I moved a ton growing up—and since 1999 I’ve had to pack up all my belongings and move . . . 13 times. Am well on my way to 14.
jeannine
I think a lot of the moves – since I’ve moved to the Seattle area – have been motivated by practical worries – such as expense and closeness to work – we seem to find one place that’s available for a good price and close to work, but then the people who rent it want it back after a year, or the well goes bad (that happened to us on Bainbridge Island – literally black water!) and stuff like that. The place we’re moving from now is neither convenient nor affordable, so now we’re moving somewhere affordable and inconvenient, and see how that goes.
But, I will say I think I feel that moving does represent a kind of possibility, hope in the future, for me – a chance to hit the re-set button. I’m pretty sure that’s how I ended up here – a few thousand miles from any of the towns where I grew up. That and those pesky good job offers that paid for the multi-state moves…I could use one of those right now :)See, sometimes I miss being a tech writing manager. Not often, though.
Responsible Artist
I hope the move is as easy as possible and you discover things worth discovering on the shelves, and lighten the burden by tossing out the things you’ve hung onto without re-evaluation.
Anonymous
Be careful. Affordable is nice, but inconvenient can drive you to tears. As I have found out over the last 2 years. I moved someplace cheap, yet it is very inconvenient, and it has wreaked havoc on my soul. I cannot wait to get out of here.
jeannine
Thanks Responsible! Yes, the best part of moving is giving away or getting rid of stuff, a forced-simplification ritual of sorts!
And Anon – well, the upside of the incovenient place is that it’s a beautiful teensy resort town, so it shouldn’t be tooo tortuous – but just the same that is my worry – two hours from Seattle – eep!
Michael Dodaro
I have some nice recollections of that resort town on the strait and in the rain shadow. My wife and I used to escape Seattle on weekends there. If you’re moving for a change of scenery, the scenery couldn’t be better. We used to know some of the musician there, but we’ve mostly lost track of them now. Check out the chamber music in the old church or that restaurant a block from the ferry and you’ll meet them yourself. No doubt there are also poets reading in those locations.
Collin
My last move nearly killed me. I want to stay put for awhile.
Are you reviewing Atwood’s “The Door”? I’ll be interested to know what you think. I reviewed it at the VRZHU Press site a month or so ago. Loved it, but it wasn’t nearly as powerful as “Morning in the Burned House” and I thought some of it was…well…just not very good.
jeannine
Thanks Michael!
And Collin – yes, I’m reviewing it, and no, I don’t think it’s as strong as “Morning” but I did enjoy the “poetry” poems and some of the other stuff. Dead cat poems, I thought, were outlawed? No?
Karen J. Weyant
Wow — you are still responding to comments — when is the big move!?