Shedding
I stood in the hallway of my potential new home, speaking on the phone with property management. "Moving... service," she asked as if she'd never heard of such a concept.
For the past two months, my old apartment of eight years has reopened an plumbing leak in the hot water lines serving a neighboring unit. The ceiling has once again, for the third time, melted, drooped, and fallen away. There's a dense rain forest of black mold spreading within the structure of the entire building, spewing out through the cracks and fissures in the drywall.
Despite me raising a warning flag for months now, the issue was ignored. Even when the old fridge short-circuited and a brand new model was installed (a three-week endeavor), my requests were ignored. I know the repairs aren't fun but if you do it for no other reason, do it for that brand new, beautiful fridge.
Now, the whole building needs to be evacuated, its internal structure gutted and rebuilt. Considering all I've gone through (not to mention not having hot water, then no water at all, malfunctioning laundry facilities, and weeks of no-show appointments, lack of communication, and general shittery), isn't offering a moving service out of the dilapidated unit the least that this property management group could offer?
"Well, yeah," I said, "I'm sure you want to get started on those repairs as soon as possible, right?"
She sounded lost, as if I was speaking purely in non sequiturs, or asking trivia questions, or had inadvertently slipped into some unintelligible verbal patois.
"A moving... service..." she gave the term another go-around in her head. Another diplomatic pause. She wasn't skilled enough to act as if she'd never heard of it before, she actually hadn't.
I wondered, Never heard of moving services before? How the fuck is that even possible?
She continued. "That isn't my area of expertise."
Speaking of non sequiturs...
~ ~
I had awoken this morning in the old apartment, foggy-headed from exhaustion and spores. Sleep was clouded by scenarios (not dreams) involving knocks at my door from some moving service coordinator or property management.
Neither happened.
This change in life is now presenting itself for what it's always been: necessary, drawn-out, and self-driven; a change I've anticipated but not in terms of effort.
I can see how this will play out. Weeks if not a full month will pass before my stuff is moved. At that point, I'll only have one more month in this location before property management decides to charge the actual rent or insist on a yearly lease. For years now, I've been planning on a springtime great escape of some sort but I wanted to avoid moving like a skipping stone. I'd much rather prefer a holistic shedding of place and persona.
Now, those changes are occurring in gradations. They come at the cost of a burned-out skull and a pained body deteriorating at the same rate as the old apartment.
What else is there to do but to keep going? To keep moving.
~ ~
Physical therapy. A second practice concurrent with the correction of an upper-body injury. This new practice is for my lower half to address the years of altered biomechanics from the surgery two years ago. My gait is off and my entire right side is fatigued, overworked, and throbbing with pain.
The prospect of running again feels farther away than it did after the surgery. Now, the process of rehabilitating my running career will have to accommodate a host of different, collateral pains.
This new therapist, a boulder of a guy in his thirties, immediately pinpoints every knot in my body. To be fair, every muscle in my body is a knot. My skin is now a satchel of marbles.
His hands are more like claws, or mechanical lawn aerators that push massive amounts of ground without compromising the skein of topsoil and grass.
A student assistant observes as I undergo the introductory rudimentary tissue massage. She takes notes as the therapist calls out names of muscle groups and tendons and associates those names with quantified limits of movement and strength. Maybe they're just speaking in code over how much noise is coming out of my body--veritable growls and yips of warning and surprise.
Sometimes I can't tell who he's speaking to. He also calls out to others in the clinic, giving instructions to patients and fellow students, correcting them on form and preventing further injury.
"Do you ever stretch," he asked. There was no one else in the clinic to whom he could be asking that question.
I replied, "I thought I did--" but the last word came out wobbly as he squeezed a knot within my calf.
He and the student chuckled.
I've always been told that I'm flexible. Now, upon reflection of habits over the past few months, I've withheld from stretching and exercising out of fear of exacerbating conditions without proper, enlightened guidance. Before the x-rays of my hip the other week, we didn't know if we were dealing with arthritis, tendonitis, or simply muscle fatigue. Still won't really know without an MRI.
The therapist then used his elbow and leaned his body mass into my thigh. The pressure was extreme and extraordinary. A sharp intake of air. I couldn't tell if I felt relieved or regretful. Is this even pain? It's like he's moving my organs around.
"Don't like massages much, do you," he asked.
"It's not that," I said, "It's just that I've never experienced one before."
I could hear their thoughts: Never experienced a massage before? How the fuck is that even possible?
~ ~
Nighttime at the new place. I sweep and mop and vacuum and sweep and mop again. I drink rye whiskey from a repurposed flask. Fire sauce for firewater.
When I think I'm done, when calling it a night seems sensible, I descend upon yet another cleaning project. I scrub and wash the walls with fervor, not to erase the stories they hold from previous tenants but to create a vacuum that begs to be filled again; to be filled with more stories. Stories from a life lived. Hopefully that interesting life will be my own.
There are two odd sentiments that float through my head:
1. I've become the type of person I would've been attracted to, some ten or twenty years ago. How narcissistic is that? Maybe I've just grown to associate legitimate living spaces with my past partners, all of whom managed to successfully secure and maintain a stable environment; a feat I thought was beyond me. But, also, becoming a world traveler has increased the qualities of being a weird and quirky person, one who only grows weirder and quirkier. If I had met someone a decade ago who could be described in those terms, I'd consider their companionship. But, now, how have these roles reversed? How am I the person inside the stable environment? I'd always been the one outside, waiting for the resident to descend to the building's entrance, to make sense of my own world. I know no one is out there for me, waiting for me to descend. Maybe I'm actually still outside, in the darkness, and this notion of stability is a delusion. I'm laying on the concrete of the steps, a bouquet of dissolving flowers for a pillow.
2. There's something incredibly English about this segue in life. I have no way else to describe it and no reason to feel that way but I might as well be in a London suburb right now.
I think of this while I take account of appearance: scrubbing bathroom tiles, wearing a grimy hat, glasses for goggles, a gray Canada hoodie, blue exercise shorts, kneepads, and shoes. If someone were to knock on the door right now, how fucking odd would I look? Very.
If someone tried, would I even hear them knocking? The doorbell doesn't work. There's no buzzer to the building. Maybe there is someone outside but I don't know it because I'm too distracted by my battered and broken eccentricities and delusions.
I throw my weight into the motion of the brush, scrubbing out marbles of dirt and grim and history. Bristles become needles. I apply heat in the form of water, and wonder how much time I'll have to appreciate this effort. Will only a few months pass before someone else moves in and becomes none the wiser of this massive movement of pushing and scraping and kneading and aerating?
This is the muckwork that's been waiting for six years. A deep restructuring. One that will leave behind a clean apartment and thin sheddings of a former human.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everything But The Girl - Nothing Left To Lose
[Listen on youtube]
Everything But The Girl - Nothing Left To Lose
I need a thicker skin
This pain keeps getting in
Tell me what to do
'cause I've always listened to you
I'm here at your door
I've been here, before
Tell me what to do
'cause nothing works without you
I know the hour is late
And I know you'll make me wait
I can sit outside
I set fire to my pride
What is left to lose?
Nothing left to lose
I need a thicker skin
This pain keeps getting in
Tell me what to do
I've always listened to you
What is left to lose?
Nothing left to lose
Kiss me while the world decays
Kiss me while the music plays
Nothing left to lose
What is left to lose?
Nothing left to lose
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the past two months, my old apartment of eight years has reopened an plumbing leak in the hot water lines serving a neighboring unit. The ceiling has once again, for the third time, melted, drooped, and fallen away. There's a dense rain forest of black mold spreading within the structure of the entire building, spewing out through the cracks and fissures in the drywall.
Despite me raising a warning flag for months now, the issue was ignored. Even when the old fridge short-circuited and a brand new model was installed (a three-week endeavor), my requests were ignored. I know the repairs aren't fun but if you do it for no other reason, do it for that brand new, beautiful fridge.
Now, the whole building needs to be evacuated, its internal structure gutted and rebuilt. Considering all I've gone through (not to mention not having hot water, then no water at all, malfunctioning laundry facilities, and weeks of no-show appointments, lack of communication, and general shittery), isn't offering a moving service out of the dilapidated unit the least that this property management group could offer?
"Well, yeah," I said, "I'm sure you want to get started on those repairs as soon as possible, right?"
She sounded lost, as if I was speaking purely in non sequiturs, or asking trivia questions, or had inadvertently slipped into some unintelligible verbal patois.
"A moving... service..." she gave the term another go-around in her head. Another diplomatic pause. She wasn't skilled enough to act as if she'd never heard of it before, she actually hadn't.
I wondered, Never heard of moving services before? How the fuck is that even possible?
She continued. "That isn't my area of expertise."
Speaking of non sequiturs...
~ ~
I had awoken this morning in the old apartment, foggy-headed from exhaustion and spores. Sleep was clouded by scenarios (not dreams) involving knocks at my door from some moving service coordinator or property management.
Neither happened.
This change in life is now presenting itself for what it's always been: necessary, drawn-out, and self-driven; a change I've anticipated but not in terms of effort.
I can see how this will play out. Weeks if not a full month will pass before my stuff is moved. At that point, I'll only have one more month in this location before property management decides to charge the actual rent or insist on a yearly lease. For years now, I've been planning on a springtime great escape of some sort but I wanted to avoid moving like a skipping stone. I'd much rather prefer a holistic shedding of place and persona.
Now, those changes are occurring in gradations. They come at the cost of a burned-out skull and a pained body deteriorating at the same rate as the old apartment.
What else is there to do but to keep going? To keep moving.
~ ~
Physical therapy. A second practice concurrent with the correction of an upper-body injury. This new practice is for my lower half to address the years of altered biomechanics from the surgery two years ago. My gait is off and my entire right side is fatigued, overworked, and throbbing with pain.
The prospect of running again feels farther away than it did after the surgery. Now, the process of rehabilitating my running career will have to accommodate a host of different, collateral pains.
This new therapist, a boulder of a guy in his thirties, immediately pinpoints every knot in my body. To be fair, every muscle in my body is a knot. My skin is now a satchel of marbles.
His hands are more like claws, or mechanical lawn aerators that push massive amounts of ground without compromising the skein of topsoil and grass.
A student assistant observes as I undergo the introductory rudimentary tissue massage. She takes notes as the therapist calls out names of muscle groups and tendons and associates those names with quantified limits of movement and strength. Maybe they're just speaking in code over how much noise is coming out of my body--veritable growls and yips of warning and surprise.
Sometimes I can't tell who he's speaking to. He also calls out to others in the clinic, giving instructions to patients and fellow students, correcting them on form and preventing further injury.
"Do you ever stretch," he asked. There was no one else in the clinic to whom he could be asking that question.
I replied, "I thought I did--" but the last word came out wobbly as he squeezed a knot within my calf.
He and the student chuckled.
I've always been told that I'm flexible. Now, upon reflection of habits over the past few months, I've withheld from stretching and exercising out of fear of exacerbating conditions without proper, enlightened guidance. Before the x-rays of my hip the other week, we didn't know if we were dealing with arthritis, tendonitis, or simply muscle fatigue. Still won't really know without an MRI.
The therapist then used his elbow and leaned his body mass into my thigh. The pressure was extreme and extraordinary. A sharp intake of air. I couldn't tell if I felt relieved or regretful. Is this even pain? It's like he's moving my organs around.
"Don't like massages much, do you," he asked.
"It's not that," I said, "It's just that I've never experienced one before."
I could hear their thoughts: Never experienced a massage before? How the fuck is that even possible?
~ ~
Nighttime at the new place. I sweep and mop and vacuum and sweep and mop again. I drink rye whiskey from a repurposed flask. Fire sauce for firewater.
When I think I'm done, when calling it a night seems sensible, I descend upon yet another cleaning project. I scrub and wash the walls with fervor, not to erase the stories they hold from previous tenants but to create a vacuum that begs to be filled again; to be filled with more stories. Stories from a life lived. Hopefully that interesting life will be my own.
There are two odd sentiments that float through my head:
1. I've become the type of person I would've been attracted to, some ten or twenty years ago. How narcissistic is that? Maybe I've just grown to associate legitimate living spaces with my past partners, all of whom managed to successfully secure and maintain a stable environment; a feat I thought was beyond me. But, also, becoming a world traveler has increased the qualities of being a weird and quirky person, one who only grows weirder and quirkier. If I had met someone a decade ago who could be described in those terms, I'd consider their companionship. But, now, how have these roles reversed? How am I the person inside the stable environment? I'd always been the one outside, waiting for the resident to descend to the building's entrance, to make sense of my own world. I know no one is out there for me, waiting for me to descend. Maybe I'm actually still outside, in the darkness, and this notion of stability is a delusion. I'm laying on the concrete of the steps, a bouquet of dissolving flowers for a pillow.
2. There's something incredibly English about this segue in life. I have no way else to describe it and no reason to feel that way but I might as well be in a London suburb right now.
I think of this while I take account of appearance: scrubbing bathroom tiles, wearing a grimy hat, glasses for goggles, a gray Canada hoodie, blue exercise shorts, kneepads, and shoes. If someone were to knock on the door right now, how fucking odd would I look? Very.
If someone tried, would I even hear them knocking? The doorbell doesn't work. There's no buzzer to the building. Maybe there is someone outside but I don't know it because I'm too distracted by my battered and broken eccentricities and delusions.
I throw my weight into the motion of the brush, scrubbing out marbles of dirt and grim and history. Bristles become needles. I apply heat in the form of water, and wonder how much time I'll have to appreciate this effort. Will only a few months pass before someone else moves in and becomes none the wiser of this massive movement of pushing and scraping and kneading and aerating?
This is the muckwork that's been waiting for six years. A deep restructuring. One that will leave behind a clean apartment and thin sheddings of a former human.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everything But The Girl - Nothing Left To Lose
[Listen on youtube]
Everything But The Girl - Nothing Left To Lose
I need a thicker skin
This pain keeps getting in
Tell me what to do
'cause I've always listened to you
I'm here at your door
I've been here, before
Tell me what to do
'cause nothing works without you
I know the hour is late
And I know you'll make me wait
I can sit outside
I set fire to my pride
What is left to lose?
Nothing left to lose
I need a thicker skin
This pain keeps getting in
Tell me what to do
I've always listened to you
What is left to lose?
Nothing left to lose
Kiss me while the world decays
Kiss me while the music plays
Nothing left to lose
What is left to lose?
Nothing left to lose
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~