Moving Is Like Playing Whack-A-Mole

It is amazing how disruptive moving is, or, to frame that positively, how important routines and disciplines are to creativity.  I think I've placed far too much emphasis on inspiration in my writing and in my work.  Moving has reminded me, inspiration is mostly a matter of just showing up every day.   

Now, things are coming together in our new home.  Moving a short distance helps us whack one mole before the next one pops up.  That's what moving feels like.

Last night, sitting out on the deck in the early evening, the thinning leaves and trees dark shadows dissolving into the darkening September sky, I actually wrote a few lines.  The dust may be settling.

I am surprised how comforting it is to be in a neighborhood again, surrounded by other houses and other lives.  Maybe that stems from the simple animal comfort of presence.  Of other people carting their trash to the curb, walking their dogs, leaving in their cars in the morning and coming back at night.


Or, maybe it is the familiarity of this floor plan in our new place.  We lived in a house like this with our boys through middle school and high school, and left for college.  This place takes us back and moves us forward. 

The places we go and the stops we make along the way become part of our evolution as people.  We think we leave a place and move on, but we never really leave.  It comes with us as the people we have become from having lived there.