How Not to Pack: A Cautionary Tale; Part 4: The Eye of the Storm

 

We must have had more than Munch’s Scream watching over us, maybe St. Jude of lost causes, because, despite the lack of preparation, most of our possessions went out the window to the waiting truck on Tuesday,

A conveyor belt brought everything 8 stories down.

 and, with everyone working:

My eternal thanks to my family for scraping paint off the floor of my studio before inspection.

We even managed to pass inspection on Wednesday morning.  I attributed our good fortune to the Moomin Mama doll that I had put in my purse as a good luck charm.

However, that level of chaos and disorder is not quickly overcome. We still had to pack and clean up at the temporary apartment, and however we did it, we seemed to have either too much stuff or too few bags. We all had 5 minutes of horror when I thought I had sent the passports into the moving truck, but, when Matt handed me a key to our house in Concord, and I put it in the pocket with the Moomin doll, I discovered the passports! Moomin Mama either saved the day, or played a trick on me, not sure which:

I would just like to mention that hauling this much luggage is not advisable when traveling by plane, train, car and metro for 10 days in Scotland and London:

As we got off the plane in Edinburgh, I couldn't find my wallet, and then Matt left his mobile phone at the airport restaurant. The final (we hope) panic occurred when the car Matt had ordered was “upgraded” from a Passat station wagon to a smaller, sportier BMW 320d with red leather seats. Nice car for a rap star, but lousy for a family of 5 with 8 suitcases and plethora of handbags. I did my best to fit it all in, while Matt argued with the rental company. A bigger car would cost more than twice the original rental:

An excellent way to do penance for lack of planning and over-accumulation
of possessions. Travel about the UK with suitcases at feet and on lap.

 

We had a two  hour ride ahead of us into the Highlands, some bags had to go. We would have to leave the two largest at the airport. A rapid repacking in the parking lot resulted in all of Adele's shoes being left, but that precious bag of herbs and spices coming on the tour of Scotland. 
















 

If you are looking for a way to de-stress, I highly recommend Scotland. How can one not relax in in the midst of fields of sheep,

absurdly quaint cottages,












and tea houses

Here is something I had never seen: a pot of tea with a timer for steeping on top.
Each color is a slightly different amount of time.

The girls thought it charming that everyone seemed to call them "Love" and "Poppet."

For excitement, we stopped at this old church with the "Thrift Store" sign 

We came away with quite a good selection of second-hand books.

 








However, for the ultimate in recuperating from the trauma of moving we have our very hospitable cousins in Elie to thank.  With Duncan and Fiona's encouragement, Matt and I actually played golf.

Historical (and hysterical) moment - my first time hitting a golf ball.

 

Fiona and Duncan look on with astonishment, as Matt, who had not picked
up a golf club in nearly 40 years, makes a birdie.

We made a trip out to the Isle of May bird sanctuary

Checking out the Razorbills, who share the island with 90,000 Puffins

 

Watching the bird-watchers

Lydia and Fiona

Iris and Adele in the window seat at Wynd House

Now we were truly in the Eye of the Storm. Iris gets credit for this description. Scotland was a wonderful, quiet respite from our recent struggles. But as she pointed out, getting out of Madrid was nothing compared to what moving back into our house would be in a couple of weeks' time.

If I manage to do a post on moving back in, I will title it: Erstwhile Antimaterialist Turned Horder Meets her Fate

But I probably won't get to it, as I really do want the next episode to be better organized than the first, and blogging is an entertaining distraction, but of little practical assistance.

How not to Pack, A Cautionary Tale: Part 3, The Teeth of the Storm

[Picking up from the previous episode.... The movers arrive on Friday instead of Monday, so we're facing a real packing disaster - a mess-up of the first order.]

After taking out the plastic scream to lend a bit of levity to a desperate situation, I call Matt, on business in France, to ask whether the moving company made a mistake. "Can we send the packers packing?" I plead. He is astonished, and says he will call back.

Shock drives any ability to speak Spanish from my head. I can't understand much of what the foreman says, though I'm happy to catch my favorite Spanish phrase, “Tranquila, tranquila."

I grab a few things out of the storage room and set the men to work there with a modicum of confidence that we will not regret losing access to whatever disappears.


Souls being weighed, to judge their worthiness for heaven.
Catalan National Museum, Barcelona, 12th century

Matt calls back to say the movers needed to come today instead of Monday because we have so much stuff. He agreed to this change months before, but had forgotten all about it.

I find that I'm actually delighted with this blooper of his. It must be the three years living in Catholic Spain that makes me delight in the thought that I am now doing penance for my sins of procrastination. This ordeal frees me from doing the inventory and from the guilt of not doing it. Wonderful!



Iris, packing her desk. Finally!

On the other hand, I'm not feeling so good about having such an absurd amount of stuff. The foreman expresses his astonishment at the quantity that must be packed and calls for reinforcements. I don't even have time to think about adding gluttony to my list of sins.  The rest of the day is a frenzy, trying to keep ahead of the four men who are rapidly packing our unsorted, uninventoried possessions into boxes.

Everything we don't want packed gets thrown in the bedroom

Uh-oh, I see one of them in my studio. I can’t think of even the most rudimentary phrases. "Iris, tell him to get out of there! Ask him if he packed anything."

"Adele, tape shut the front hall closet so they don’t pack the things for Scotland. Throw this pile of clothes on my bed, and tape shut the door."

"No, don’t tape it, I have to go in there!"

By 6:00, when they quit, I look a bit like that plastic scream doll.
Working on my purse with silver paints is a lovely restorative.

Saturday morning 5:00 am: I can’t sleep, thinking about all that needs to be done. I keep imagining my friend, Bernadette, who, with great poise, carries out their family moves single-handedly. What would she be doing now? She probably would travel to the coast to join her children, who are already relaxing at a beach resort. She will return by herself on Monday to oversee the move with her neatly printed inventory on a clipboard. She is thinking to herself that she must remind her husband, who is on a business trip, to join them at the resort. He may have forgotten they are moving.

Adopting my most Bernadette-like attitude, I decide that I can at least let Matt sleep a couple more hours.

Later, I sort through the wreckage of stuff thrown in the bedroom the day before, and consider how I can do in two days all the things that I ought to have done over the past two months.  What can I assign the kids to do, without causing a rebellion?

Matt says we seem to be keeping up pretty well, so he figures he'll go on one of his three hour bike rides. I think to myself, he’s crazy. He has no idea that we are on the verge of disaster. But I encourage him to go. Why stress him out as well, when I don’t even know what to tell him to do?

After the ride, bless his sainted soul, he spends hours dismantling my studio.

On Sunday we move to a temporary apartment five blocks away, further complicating the madness. We lose the keys, and the hot water is not working. We have to move food and kitchen supplies over, and surely there is far too much stuff to take to Scotland.

Repacking bags that have been mixed up.

Monday is only slightly less chaotic, and yet closer to the end, so more dire than Friday. We must search for those keys that got packed by mistake. I have to repack the items that have been mixed up between our normal luggage and air shipment, and unpack a portfolio with art work of Claire’s that she wants shipped to the school in Paris that she will be at next year.

 

Does Claire really need this sent to France?

I have to wonder - am I just blogging about what is happening, or is my blogging affecting what is happening? With all this unpacking and repacking, we are really doing the most extraordinary job of not packing .  

 

 

 

 

 

I find Matt in the kitchen sorting dozens of jars of herbs and spices. I say with a note of panic, "Why are you doing that? They can just pack all that up."

"No," he says, "Any food items will hold up the shipment in customs. We have to take them with us to Scotland."

"What, all those jars? Then throw them out!" I say. I'm beginning to crack.

It must be his determination to not share my panic, or his disgust that we have already thrown out and given away so much in the chaos, but he devotes himself to emptying all the little jars and putting the contents in carefully marked bags.  I decide to not argue. After all, he should be on a business trip, or relaxing with the children at the seaside resort.

 

 

Yikes! I wasn’t paying attention and they are putting bubble wrap around the suitcases meant for our trip to Scotland. I decide I must get them over to the other apartment. Where have the girls gone? They must be hiding out there so we don’t ask them to do anything, but how can I blame them? They should be at that fictional resort on the coast. 

 Matt asks me to take as well the bag he has put together of the herbs and spices so it gets to Scotland. It must weigh 10 pounds. It occurs to me that I may have to remove some art supplies to fit them in. I want to stick them in the back hall for the portero, but in the interest of preserving peace in the marriage I put them all in a canvas bag and balance it on top of a suitcase.

 Like so many moments in life, there is an apt Moomintroll cartoon:

5 blocks later, now at the door to the apartment building, Matt calls. He just found a note about an orthodontist appointment for Adele in one hour. Argh! What more can go wrong?!  Well, no one answers the bell. I have no keys and I can't make a call because I have run out of time on my cell phone. I don't know how to get to the office, and the GPS has been packed, so, between one thing and another, Adele misses her last appointment with the orthodontist.

Locked out of the temporary apartment with two suitcases 10 pounds of spices, I discover that
my phone is out of money and, therefore, time.

The Munch Screamer Doll has disappeared, no doubt into a box, but its spirit lingers over us.

Stay tuned for How Not to Pack: A Cautionary Tale
 Part 4: False Endings

How Not to Pack, Part 2: The Fiasco Begins

Part 2 of 4 (or so)

It is Wednesday and the packers will arrive on Monday to box things up. Next Tuesday everything except the suitcases will descend by an eight-story conveyer belt out the living room window into the truck.

I finally get myself to decide what will go in the air shipment versus by slow boat, and what we will take on our trip to Scotland on the way home. First things first: what art supplies do I want to carry with me? This is an excellent time to leave the apartment and spend several hours on my perpetual search for the perfect handbag.

I think I've found it this time: a great bag with lots of pockets and plenty of room for sketchbooks, though I don’t care so much for the garish silver zippers.

On Thursday, Matt calls from France to ask whether I've finished the inventory for the insurance company. The sense of guilt and dread that this engenders makes me realize that silver paint could really complement those zippers.

As usual, fish are the perfect theme.

Not that I don’t make every miserable effort I'm capable of to actually do that inventory. I start in on the contents of a closet but get caught up in considering what should be given away, or sold, or just put in a different closet for packing.

For example, is this tea worth keeping?

I have to make a cup to decide. It is not very good, but the container proves excellent for holding pencils that are too short for the regular containers, but too long to throw out.

By the way, it may have occurred to you that taking photos and blogging about what you are doing is yet another way not to pack.

I need some art therapy to recover from the trauma of cleaning out the closet. The silver Sharpie is not quite what I want on that purse. Silver paint from the spray can would be closer to the silver of the zippers. If I could just get it from the can into this old film canister. Of course, I hold it far out of the front window so as not to get paint in the living room. Oh! Silver paint sprayed directly into an itsy-bitsy film canister ricochets out and gets all over my arm as well as the lovely tiles around the window!

So I add a very quick trip to the hardware store around the corner to the to-do list that I never made for this move. When I ask the kind man behind the counter who has become fond of me and all the money I have spent there over the past three years for the type of paint remover that works on spray paint, and my arm is covered with the exact color paint that is favored by graffiti artists in Madrid, well, he looks at me more shrewdly than in the past.

I am up at 5:00 Friday morning. Finally, the thought that the moving company will be at our apartment on Monday acts as a tonic to my brain. I am in just enough of a panic to actually focus on the task, and not so much as to be incapacitated. I sort out things to send on the air shipment and put them in a corner; suitcases for the trip to Scotland go in the closet. I resolve to spend the whole day on an inventory.

At 8:45 the doorbell buzzes. On the intercom, a man is asking me something. I can’t make it out, and he does not say our names. It must be for someone else, so I hang up. He buzzes again. He seems quite persistent, and I catch the word moverse. Maybe this has something to do with the moving company? I buzz him in.

A nice young South American man looks at me with a bit of surprise and asks (in Spanish), "Is this not Paseo del Pintor Rosales, 26?" They are there to start packing for the move.

"Today?"
" Yes."
" Today?"
"Yes."
"Today?!!"

I leave the surprised fellow to race down the hall, knocking on girls’ doors, “The movers are coming!”

"When?" asks a groggy Adele.

“Now. They’re here!”

Claire comes appears from her room (which leads directly to the back hall), having thrown a towel over herself. “Mom, there are men knocking on the back door of my room.”

This might be it. My lack of organization and planning might actually have led to a fiasco this time. It is time to take out the plastic doll of Munch's Screamer:

 

 Stay tuned for How Not to Pack: The Teeth of the Storm.

How Not to Pack, Part 1: The Advanced Workshop

Part 1 of 4 (or so)

For the beginner's version of How Not to Pack, see my previous post from November 2010: How not to Pack when sent Packing.

I feel that I am qualified to write the Advanced version as, three years ago we relocated, in a most inefficient, inelegant style, from Concord, Massachusetts to Madrid, and since then we have had countless small trips and three of 2 to 3 months duration, yet, I detect no perceptible improvement in my planning, organizing and execution of this move.

A few months ago, I was sharing with a friend of mine, Bernadette, a terrifically competent, efficient woman, much experienced in relocating, about the complexity of our upcoming move, with over three tons of possessions to be shipped to the States by boat, another 500 pounds by air, suitcases to take with us on a trip to Scotland on the way back. Bernadette told me that she starts several months in advance with such things as writing up lists of to-dos, getting rugs cleaned, finding buyers for whatever will not be moved, getting doctor appointments out of the way, and so forth. “My husband has no idea what a job it is. Or the kids. I do everything.”

Personally, I start the process of procrastination several months in advance. The effort of ignoring the inevitable, the dread of facing responsibility, and the guilt of avoiding it, coupled with the terror that procrastination will culminate in a real fiasco – all these are excellent fuel to the creative process.

This hand-made book, mostly inspired as a present for Claire’s 18th birthday in May, was a fabulous way to occupy my mind for two weeks and prevent the thoughts of preparing for the move to take hold. It's based on the children's book "Mommy, would you love me if..." Here are a few of the pages:



The front cover, done with a stencil that Claire made.

Still, as the clock crept forward, the reality of needing to pack and the fear of a fiasco become more pressing. I considered the odious process of disassembling my studio, packing supplies, repairing the walls and getting the paint off the floor.

Due to allergies, I had packed up my paints and pastels early, and resigned myself to not having this major distraction when it came time to move. But now, as I scanned the scene, I noticed the low toxicity pigments I had ordered a few weeks ago. I decided it was the right moment to pull a few things back out so I could see if they worked.

 

 

When I mixed the pigments with walnut oil, the result was a lovely paint without noxious fumes that I could work with right in the house. With this painting set up in the living room, I had a constant alternative to planning and preparing the move.

"Memories of Madrid", walnut oil paint on board, 50in x 30in

I wanted to continue, but the anxiety that this move could be worse than bad overcame my obsessed art making, and I put away the oils. Only three weeks to go! I really had to pack this all away! But I couldn't bear to. The sea shipment would take at least a month to get to us, and then I still would not have a studio set up. Maybe if I made a cartoon about not packing I would understand my resistance better and be able to overcome it:

 

Like Gomar, I did resolve to put away the art projects. But unpacking is an excellent way to not pack, and it seemed to me that I might not actually be allergic to black and white pastels after all - surely only to the colored ones.  And how long could it take to make a portrait of our beloved Pilates instructor, Annette, who surely deserved a nice going-away present? I unpacked the pastels and got to work:

Annette

 

Okay, that was fun, but time was moving forward. The fiasco of a move that was a vague possibility on the horizon now came into focus, looming over me. I remembered the words of my friend from almost three months ago - how she did everything for the move. A sense of terror and loneliness washed over me. Claire was focused on graduating from high school and going off on last minute trips with friends. Iris, always hopelessly absent-minded, was wrapped up in saying good-byes and navigating through 7th grade drama. Meanwhile, Adele, more capable by nature than her mother in carrying out this move, had already become tired of covering for her sisters as well as herself. Matt when not off on a business trip had been trying to sell the car; he was hardly in a position to take charge of the move. If only I could follow the advice of my friend who did it all!

 

Stay tuned for part two: How Not to Pack: The Fiasco Begins