We are in Madison!

The moving van pulled away from our Indy house on Thursday at about 4:30, leaving us with an empty house and waiting for a plumber – foibles of the movers which felt huge when it happened and now just a blip to the day. It was a very long day. The promised half day of getting our household stuff on the truck stretched into an entire day – 9 to 4:30 – now, tell me they get paid by the hour! We were their only pick up and transport for this trip to Madison, and I think they wanted to get a full day of work in.

The Indy house looked lovely stripped of all our things. I have spent five months de-cluttering and putting stuff in storage, and then packing to observe the house being washed of our presence. It has been. Not our spirits completely – there is paint on walls, finishing on cabinets, tile on walls and floors, all those plants, and our fish. We are still in the air. I could not take the fish – some were born in that pond and have no recollection of being cheap feeder fish awaiting death. They are wild and free – to the extend that a 6 x12 pond is the wild and free. I have no asked and the new owners have no said if they will keep the pond or fill it in, but I have to leave my wild gold fish to their fate.

Suffice it to say that we staggered (by car of course) to Marcia's house for a glass of wine, take out chinese and ice cream. Then we fell into our beds and slept heavy and deep, even the spicy dragon.

On Friday morning, David went to the Indiana State House to meet with his old cronies, and Julia and I stayed at Marcia’s house packing up the car and readying ourselves for the closing at 3. The plan was to leave from the closing around 4 and start driving to Madison if all went quickly and well. We were armed with a back up plan of spending another night if there were some other blips which by this time we have gotten very accustomed to on this move.

Ach! The closing. I am SO judgmental! I didn’t like our buyers. I wonder if we would have been able to sell the house to these people without an agent. There was a lot of hand holding that their agent was doing with them and lots of solicitous behavior from our agent. I thought they were foolish and arrogant -- they were young but youth has nothing to do with their stance, I expect they will be the same at 70. They had a first and second mortgage on their first house and took the same on our house. They used a balloon first mortgage that has gotten so many into trouble this year. I wonder if our house will be on the market again within a year or two. They may just be investing and fixing up for re-sale. I have to grudgingly admire their nerve in this market if that is their plan. If they are just stretching themselves very thin, I see them as only foolish.

Something that distressed me was that they asked nothing about the house – its history, who lived there before we did, what we did, what others did, questions about the garden. Is it my own longing for history and roots that extend further than I can know, or some form of ego? To be able to explain all of our work, or how the garden developed for me. I don’t really know. But it saddened that the young family moving into our beloved house would have no stories to pass on. Then again, most developers pass on nothing about the corn field that they turned into a neighborhood. Our neighbor, Katherine, said, after I explained some of our dealings and bargainings, that this new family does not sound like they will fit into an old house. Possibly. But it is done.

Something I discovered only after we were a day in Madison — I forgot to dig up St. Joseph. I intended to and intended to bring him to Madison, but maybe he has work to do in Indy. Still, I felt like there was a promise broken. Sorry, St. Joe.

We drove up to Madison after the closing. It was the easiest six hours I’ve spent in a car in a long time. Fueled by adrenalin, we practically flew up – not fast, but it was a pretty easy ride even through Chicago.

And here we are! Madison. We all slept hard and long. We had a very slow day on Saturday and I expect that we will have another one Sunday. I grieve a little bit about the dear friends left in Indy. I hope to be in touch. Email and cell phones are wonderful at that.

Mondy's entry posted late

<> It is Monday and we made it through the weekend. It feels like a great gift of a new time. No, the house is not sold yet, but there is interest by at least one person who has been here twice and people are still stopping and taking flyers from our "info-tube." This is not like ‘96 with a sale of our Butler-Tarkington house is one day with hords of people through the house during the open house. We had about 10 groups (some singles, one young man with his parents, young couples, etc.) come and look at the house. Only two were neighbors and one of those brought a friend back which was very sweet of her.

By five when we closed up shop, I was exhausted by . . . being so nice and helpful for three hours??? LOL.

The woman, Cheryl, who returned on Monday came with a realtor (she had asked me about this prior to her coming) and they went over things with a fine tooth comb. Lots of relevant good questions and also lots of oohs and ahs. Cheryl’s timetable is perfect. She has sold her house and is in an month-to-month apartment right now. She is down to 2 houses that she likes and ours is one.

Oh, St. Joseph make it happen.

So I can breathe out after weeks of cleaning, fixing and worrying. I have been so tense that if I let me shoulders really drop my ears will get frost bite. No, it is beautiful spring right now and the outside really looks good. I am so grateful that I am seeing the garden for the last time in the spring, but it makes it harder to leave. Perennials that I've nursed along for years now look good! And there actually looks like there is some plan to my plantings. Colors are meshing together and giving each other room to shine. I feel both very attached to every plant and blade of grass and ready to separate from it. I have the idea that it is time to leave this work-intensive private garden and be more active in a community. I am not sure what that means.

Julia had a hard week last week and so I had a hard week. Think she is picking up on the tension in the house? If she isn't, she has rhino hide! Our 10 year old friend, Matthew, was with us for part of last week and at one point he told me that my job as Julia's mother was really hard and he felt sorry for me. Last week, he was right on. (I wondered what Julia was thinking, with the tension in the house, the constant cleaning, Daddy gone, and Matthew staying with us -- how confusing is all of that?)

Her behavior in school is better if you consider compliance better than fighting the system, but I don’t think she is learning much right now. There are less than three weeks of school and I have been so busy and pre-occupied that I haven't done much about it, but I plan to try home schooling this summer to the extent that I can. She is learning the names of some of her favorite dinosaurs – big favorites are duckbills right now, Maisaurus, Parasaurolophus, and Chingtaosaurus – the last was found in China which Julia seems to be very proud of. She is just starting to show some connection to China these days, very slight interest, but some. I figure I will use dinos as a jumping off place to work on numbers (she is counting! -- really counting, not just reciting numbers), colors, and her letters.

I have my CLE (continuing education for law) to catch up on and I have to do it before leaving for Wisconsin and I can do a bit of garden work just to keep it up even if the house is sold. But I want to have some fun this summer too -- traveling to see Ches who will be in Bolivia and visiting the east coast, getting Julia and a new house ready for living longterm, and swimming. Julia remembers the Florida beach very well and talks about it all the time. I hope the Wisconsin lakes satisfy her.

David is still loving Madison -- so great!!! Yes, we are very grateful that we are moving to this very cool town, but housing is more expensive than Indy and we are looking at smaller homes and smaller lots. I am over any regret about this and hope it is okay for Julia and the dog.
I hope that we can drive up and be with David for the weekend coming up. I hate seeing him do the 5 hour trip every week. And then last week, he took a wrong turn and put an extra hour on his trip. As I said before, last week was a tough week.