Many Meanings of the Word Moving

“Moving” is a single word with a variety of meanings: a change of place or residence, or a feeling that is touching, poignant, pathetic or thrilling. For me, the word with its many definitions triggered a multitude of emotions when I learned recently that the house we had been leasing since 1982 in North County was going to be sold. We had to move!

My head reeled with images of packing cases and shelf paper, moving men and new address labels, naked walls and familiar furniture in unfamiliar places.

Pictures flashed before my eyes, interrupting my thoughts with the frightening prospect of many changes--strange doctors, a new market, a dry cleaner who cannot clean, a newspaper man who cannot throw. New neighbors--friendly or forbidding? Will I lose my way in a neighborhood I do not know? Will the afternoon sun be where I want it to be this time?

It is hard to believe that we are seasoned movers, my husband and I. Yet, in 41 years of marriage we have moved 10 times. Ten times we have taken our love, our children, our careers and our growing mountain of possessions and moved: from Ohio to North Carolina, from North Carolina to Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to New York and, finally from New York to California. But, here, too, we have not been permanent, living in the San Fernando Valley, the Conejo Valley and San Diego’s North County.

Somehow, we never stayed more than 10 years in one home, several times we left after only 12 months. We moved with the development of Erv’s rabbinic career. Occasionally we changed residence within a city, seeking more room, more comfort, a more pleasant neighborhood. Each time we landed on our feet, just another experience joining the others. Of all the moves, however, the one to California in 1965 was the most exciting.

When, as a child of 5, I had visited Southern California for a summer, I created a dream: I would grow up and live in that sunshine, forever brown, healthy and free of the wounds of Eastern winter. Disappointingly, as I grew into adulthood, there were false starts. I did not go west for college, but plowed through the snows of Michigan, instead. In later years when there were opportunities to go west, we opted for family closeness and remained in the East. But in 1965, my childhood dream became reality. We had tried our wings and learned that airplanes do truly shorten distances. So we journeyed west with children and possessions. Another move, but this time to fulfill a dream. It was an exciting change of place; an exciting change of pace.

Seventeen years later, in 1982, like birds tired in flight, we alighted in North County and settled at Lake San Marcos. As I write, I can still recall my sense of relief. The Los Angeles area had been good to us for more than a decade and a half, but the smog and the crowds had spoiled our dream. In North County, we found comfort and peace: smog-free air and an uncongested, stressless environment. We congratulated ourselves, for we had finally found the place in which to live out our lives in comfort; a place conducive to a healthy retirement.

We folded away the packing cases on a high and unreachable shelf. I wanted to trash them, but Erv is a saver. We learned our way around town. I found shortcuts without getting irretrievably lost. We got to know and be known by the manager of the market (until he moved away!). We discovered a great dentist and the best frozen yogurt in the area. We made friends on the tennis court and enjoyed our neighbors. We bought letterheads and wrote a book together.

We not only had moved, we had moved and settled in. The area was growing, but we did not worry about smog and congestion. Our protected enclave at Lake San Marcos became our refuge and comfort zone. The road to San Diego and its “big city goodies”--theater, concerts, shopping, Balboa Park--was direct and quick. Friends visited from the city up north and envied us.

“How long will you live here?” they would ask. “Forever!” we answered. They did not understand what it meant to us to sink roots after 41 years of moving.

And then, two months ago, the blow fell. Our landlady-friend informed us that she had to sell the house. In four years, like unrealistic children, we had come to believe that the wonderful, warm relationship that existed between us and the owners of our beautiful home would last our lifetime. We would never have to move again, we thought. Wishful thinking is deception.

We could not afford the purchase price. We had to move.

The thought of leaving our home and the lake community became a nightmare. It was truly pathetic. Once more I was facing change. This time I felt neither bouncy nor resilient. Memories of other moving experiences provided no comfort. The challenges of change and newness did not supplant my apprehensions.

I went through the motions of viewing new houses, old houses, different houses, each a potential home for us. I looked at each with veiled eyes and critical judgment. A kitchen was too small, a hall too long; there were too few closets and too many doors; a yard was too tiny or had too much grass to mow. A location was inconvenient, a house uninviting, too little or too big, too noisy or too isolated.

It did not take a master’s degree in social work to understand that I did not want to move. I thought: let’s pay the price, buy this house that was our home and stay. Who cares if we would be house-poor, so broke that we could not go anyplace or “do” anything. At least we would suffer no physical pain and no emotional callouses from “moving again”.

But that was simply unrealistic.

We walked the neighborhood, my resilient husband excited over the prospect of new experience and I, weeping inwardly, already missing the quiet and beauty of Lake San Marcos.

And then, we discovered it: our dream home. Only a mile away, in the lake community, it was meant for us--a perfect home in a perfect place. I felt that I had been saved. The threat was over.

And here I am, in the process of moving, stealing the hour to write these words, while I ought to be filling packing cases. The adventure of moving, the challenge of newness, the excitement of converting a house into a home exist again. I will not have to leave my dentist or grocer. I know when the mail is to be picked up and exactly when the newspaper will arrive. I even know where and when the sunshine will warm and brighten my home.

An old expertise has returned with the excitement: I am moving like a pro. The sadness and disappointment are gone and the goodies remain, especially the peaceful, stress-free, smog-free life that we love.

I am pleased; moving this time is fun. A new house is like a new garment: if it doesn’t fit perfectly, we will fix it. So much is right, problems will only be negligible.

Initially, the thought of moving had filled me with apprehension and fear. But the act of moving now provides me with excitement and promise. You see, we are not moving, we’re merely changing our address.