The Transition Team

That is what we are today and tomorrow as we once again go from being tourists in Canada to Point Roberts residents in the U.S.. You might think it’s like coming home from a vacation trip since we’ve only been away from the U.S. for 13 days. But it isn’t. It’s more like leaving home and simultaneously going back home, but everything is different. Well, not everything. One thing I committed to early on was a lot of duplication so I wouldn’t be having to do without things that I was used to having easy access to nor would I be pining for things I didn’t have but needed. But that involved a million small decisions about what were the relevant items to duplicate: obviously, standard household furnishings are in both houses, and I have fully accoutered quilting/sewing setups in both places. We tried to set up the kitchens in both places so that utensils and cooking/food items would be if not in the same place at least similarly placed: frying pans hang from the rafters in both houses, a drawer which we refer to as the ‘cutter-not-a-knife’ drawer is similarly placed in both houses.

We have a wonderful pair of glider rockers in both houses that make the best reading chairs ever and it is a great treat not to have to be away from those chairs. On the other hand, Ed has a table saw only at one house and carries lumber back and forth when he needs to do that kind of cutting. He has kayaks at one house, but not the other, and his skis and backpacking equipment keep company with the kayaks. At one point, I moved knitting needles back and forth with me, rather than buy another entire set, but then I realized that thrift shops sell knitting needles for nickels, so now there is a complete set at each house. We keep full sets of clothes at each house, moving only our winter coats back and forth, but I needed some greater distinction between them so I knew what went where: my Canada clothes are black-oriented and my U.S. clothes lean to navy blue.

I felt very strongly that if we were going to be going back and forth this frequently, it would be better to minimize the number of things we were dragging back and forth with us, so we did more duplication perhaps than was strictly necessary. But it is a relief on the twice-a-month transition day not to have to be thinking much about what needs to go with us, other than things we are in fact currently working on, currently reading, and currently seeing or listening to. It makes the actual leaving much easier not to have to be doing a lot of packing, and it makes it less like going on or returning from a vacation.

But it also makes it more like stopping one life and then starting up another life—new people, new sights, new concerns--and the transition days have a funny psychological quality: I’m almost always mentally prepared to leave the day before we actually leave, and I find myself, as I am today, with everything finished up, closed down, and turned off, while I wander around strangely at loose ends, waiting for life to start again. The other effect it has is on one’s sense of time. I know that time passes more quickly as one gets older, but it passes even more quickly when you have two different lives with 24 months, each only 2 weeks long. And that’s what it’s mostly like. Finished this February 2008 life now for the second time, time to go start the first of two March 2008 lives tomorrow. Spring will be beginning in that life, too. But I’m also letting go of winter for the second time this year. Happy to do so, though.