--Random House
Dictionary
Thirty six million Americans, 11.7 percent of the United States
population—that’s how many of us will move this year. Move: pick up, pack up,
gather up all of our belongings, pile it all up into some type of vehicle and then
hit the road for a new place to call home.
Very soon it will be moving season again around here, balmy spring
and summer days when we pull into our neighborhood and see the moving vans.
Oversized brightly colored trucks sitting in suburban driveways or double
parked on cramped city streets. Strong young women and men balancing boxes,
carrying photo albums and house plants and family heirlooms into a new place or
out of the old place. I always feel
bittersweet, wistful, even sad, when I see someone moving in or someone moving
out. In the past few weeks four close friends have let me know that they are
moving soon.
I envy them. Who doesn’t imagine the excitement of packing
it all up and embarking upon a brand new life chapter? But I mourn their loss too. Moving means things have to change. Moving means that folks who were close,
connected, right next door, are now going away and so that relationship will be
different.
Life moves. Life moves on.
When I was younger I was a serial mover, didn’t stay in any
one place for very long. From my early
twenties to mid-forties I moved eleven times between four states, for grad
school and seven job changes. That’s a lot of miles, a lot of sticky packing
tape and bulky cardboard boxes, a lot of teary goodbyes and anxious hellos,
seeing what was once my home fade in the rear view mirror, flying by highway
signs which proclaimed “Now Entering!” Wondering
what adventures lay ahead.
Americans move for lots of reasons, in the dance of exiting
and entering, departing and disembarking.
Job changes. Family changes like aging parents or retirement or marriage
or divorce. We move to get a fresh start
or to finally settle down, move because the place we’ve lived finally has
nothing more to offer us. Move because some shining city calls out with a siren
song of hoped for prosperity or the chance to reset life and being again.
The U.S.
census reports that folks from the northeastern U.S. move the least and folks from
the wide open west are the vagabonds of our land. The top five states for
moving to are Alaska, Vermont,
Oregon, Kentucky
and Texas. The top five states for moving from are Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois, New York and Ohio. Who stays put the longest? Those from the
bayous and from Bourbon Street
in Louisiana,
which boats a native born population of almost 80 percent. We Bay Staters are
homebodies too: 63 percent of us have never left. Nevadans can’t seem to stay
put. Only 24 percent of “Silver
State” citizens started
out there.
It’s harder for me than it once was to accept this truth of
human movement, of friends and family one day just letting me know that they
are leaving. Maybe it is because I am
older and change doesn’t seem as good a friend as it once was to me. Maybe settling in rather than moving on is my
natural state now. Maybe a restless spirit is the province of the young and a
desire to put down deep roots is the comfort of the old. Who knows?
Yet I do know this. God did not create human beings in
stasis, just resting in place, still. From the moment homo sapiens stood up and walked on two legs we have been moving.
Moving on up. Moving away from. Moving
towards. So as the person who this time is staying in place and watching as the
moving van pulls away, I offer a simple prayer and blessing for all my “in
motion” friends, the ones soon to depart.
Via Con Dios! Go with God! I’ll miss you, lots. But
sometimes? It is time to move.
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