In Wellfleet, the post season doesn’t mean watching your team sputter out in the pennant race, completely obliterating all chances for a World Series, (“I can’t watch the Sox”, wrote Matt Tibbi in Rolling Stone and I quite agreed). 

No, post season begins after the Main Street flood of 20,000 people, in town for the annual Oysterfest, have receded off-Cape to their homes.  PJ’s, The Beachcomber and Laughin’ Lobster mounted their “See You in April” signs late Saturday night, the same block letters that greeted me when I drove across the Bourne Bridge last April. By Monday October 15th, only 25% of the restaurants in town remain open and 90% of the homes will remain empty until June 2013.

Months have passed since I left and returned to the Cape. Summer feels like ages ago, a whole other person ago, as if August were the division between the old and New Year. For most of the month, I was living on the Karissa, a '70s Chris Craft houseboat, motors removed, sharing less than 75 feet with a man I have been involved with on and off for the past three years. I’ve managed to tell no one except my sister, and, with more vagueness than necessary, my mother. I didn't stay on the phone longer than five minutes with anyone. 

That this sometimes on, most times off again relationship flickered on again should surprise no one. I have been nothing short of reckless in matters of the heart since 1997, when, on an ill-fated evening, I hosted a dinner party and met a rotund, balding Texan and traded my good sense with a bad habit I just can’t seem to quit, like smoking and the New York Times crossword. 

What can I say? Steak on the grill, corn on the cob and my favorite ice cream in the freezer easily bamboozle me.  Except for a few day trips here and there, I was anchored to the marina, baking homemade granola, blending up green smoothies, half-heartedly doing yoga on the dock and undoing the mind body spirit routine I had established in Wellfleet. When I finally pulled out my favorite bright tangerine orange cords, they were tight around the ass. That’s what this trip to the moon on gossamer wings does to you. Widens the load. Takes up valuable space.

Two weeks into August, one of the librarians called to inform me that “… someone has, well, they’ve torn down your sign for housing and crumpled it up.  If you want to send another, I’d be happy to post it.” My ‘fleetian friend Karen later tells me to brush it off as “Augustitis”, a condition born from overly crowded markets, beaches and restaurants combined with surly impatience for the bloat to be gone.  I’ve since observed, however, that living in a community reliant on such a large seasonal populace is that when everyone “other” finally does leave, it feels as if you’re empty of breath, are strangely bewildered with the absence of energy, and a bit angry too – somewhat like a sugar crash, a symptom I was quite familiar with, especially after the seduction by homemade salted caramel ice cream and coffee in bed.

During my lie-in on the Karissa, I negotiated my lease, returning mid-September enthused, signing up for Beekeeping classes, outlining the film studies workshop I am conducting at the library for middle and high-schoolers, helping my neighbors cover the garden with sea hay until the spring and working with my friend Peter to organize volunteers for the Modern House Trust, and looking forward to the Wellfleet Oysterfest, the last big party of the year. 

Ray, the first familiar face I saw picked me up off the ground and said, "So you're back? For good!?" I said yes, but it is unlikely I will be able to stay here, notwithstanding the winter.  (“Quiet” is the common adjective I get from everyone I ask about the dark season). Putting down roots is a challenge. The Cassick Valley cottage is secured through June 30^th until I join the “Wellfleet Shuffle”, due to the shortage of year round housing; unless you are lucky or well connected enough to find it.  For the rest of us, rent will double during the high season of July and August. Another setback is that these rentals are certain to be furnished by the AIM Thrift Store, the swap shop at the transfer station or IKEA,  making it difficult to decorate with things that allow you to call it “home”, or in my case, get out of storage.

This morning, I calculated that over the past five years I have spent, get ready for it, $15,000 on storage. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more, but that about sums it up. I hesitated before I multiplied five years times twelve months times the rental cost, recalling Brian’s advice as I was instructing his men on how I wanted the unit organized.  "You shouldn't be worrying about that.  You should be worrying about where you are going to be moving to next. And I would recommend that you find that place within a year.' "You're right.” I repeat this out loud a few more times, ingraining this knowledge into my psyche. I trusted Brian. He was a solid guy, had moved me twice already, from Silver Lake to Highland Park to Eagle Rock to Pasadena, the location of my first storage unit.

           

I’ve cross-referenced my ideal “life” list with Wellfleet, and it fulfills almost all of my requirements, (a community of intelligent, progressive, creative people, close to an airport, the ocean, volunteer opportunities, etc), except this one: gainful employment. 

The community is warm and welcoming, full of salty fishermen and artists. There are lots of gardeners, activists, writers, and painters.  It would be easy for me to have my own radio show, join a play reading group, get on the affordable housing committees, but I cannot even begin to think about rooting down here without buying a property and that is not feasible without a full time job, a rarity on the outermost Cape. And yes, I thought about filling out an application, but working the evening shift at the Mobile gas station is not something I want to do.

I’m also facing the hard reality that my dream of USC’s Graduate School program comes with an expensive price tag, no less than $40,000, of which I am ineligible for student aid, making it economically impractical for me to enroll without the guarantee of a job. In almost every state, open teaching positions are limited to Math, Science (even EXXON Mobil is promoting the president’s initiative) and Speech pathologists; which, strangely, I qualify for with my “Speech & Theatre” degree from Wagner College.

But I can’t reconcile working my way into the system by teaching ESL when the whole point of shifting gears mid - third career was to share the subjects I love to young minds taking flight into the world of post-high school.  So, I’ve joined the many who have banked their aspirations until a retirement wave of English and Theatre teachers begins.

At the end of this autumn, the trees fat with leaves quickly steeping to brown waiting for the right moment, the right gust of wind (apparently it wasn’t Sandy) to blow them all off at once, I've been told that I wander, but maybe I love too many places.  

A friend from California tells me “Come home, you’ve been gone too long.”

"It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn—which is what life is all about." —Oprah Winfrey

The Longest Move

It seems like yesterday I was hailing a cab on 2nd Avenue, headed off to the tropical part of the United States, a/k/a: Hawaii. It was December 20th, 4:30 AM. It was cold and dark.  Street vendors piled the sidewalk with Christmas trees, and it was still so on January 17th, 2011.  The fragrant evergreen piney smell of trees that had been felled recently, and I imagine, bought on December 24th only to be tossed to the street as the 12th day of Christmas rang through. 

This was the day I had finally ordered the movers to deliver my worldly possessions to the apartment I had reluctantly signed a lease for in mid-December, immediately regretting the decision and spending the following weeks tossing and turning, dreams of unruly neighbors and angry landlords, who I had recently learned, were my next-door neighbors.

As if I had been born under a sign that demanded it so, it rained as it had for the past three major moves I’d been through, and for over $1000, three men busted my furniture and boxes through the door in just two hours. Not bad.   After they left the apartment, I followed them and traipsed back up to the safety of Tudor City and a minimalist apartment that wasn’t wall-to-wall boxes and plastic wrapped furniture.   

My friend and former roommate  Victoria offered some comfort, ‘moving always sucks’. “Remember how many books I had when we were living together on East 19^th Street?” I ask her. “Multiply that by 17 years.”     I ended up staying in Tudor City for the next two weeks until I was curtly told via text message "Cut the cord!”.  I was being ridiculous, I know, but I just did not want to face the task ahead of me. 

How can I put the feelings I had into words while I shuffled through cartons I had boxed up in August 2007 and left in a Pasadena storage facility?  "Simultaneously detached and eerily present" is what comes to mind.  In fact, it was rather overwhelming.  Life has happened.  Things have changed. I’m different. And that I’ve been an unapologetic transient… it feels like I’ve been moving for years.


I keep trying to believe what people tell me, that this will be fresh start, that all of my efforts and energy will come back to me, but I can’t seem to drink the Kool-Aid just yet. It seems like such a monumental effort, this moving, and I can't help but wistfully think of Gandhi and his shoebox.

What I’m finding are things particularly California-centric; a Stickley bed set, Catalina forged decorative tiles, Plein Art oils of the Cambria coast, a rare pattern of Franciscan ware called “Forget Me Not “ as if lulling me back to the west coast. 

All of this fit pretty nicely into that life over there - wide-open space and suburban cityscape, that way out west across the Painted Desert, the blur of colored lights in the middle of nowhere, the cragged ragged crags of the Sierras changing color with every hour of every day.   This is what my boxes contain. The light.   I miss the light, which is especially poignant given we’ve barely had two days of sun during all of February, March and the first two weeks of April.

Don't get me wrong, I love living in New York.  Every day I’m on the move, walking to and from and sometimes nowhere and I am always glad to be here. But I although the reason why I ended up here is a happy accident, I can’t say that moving is happy making.

It just brings up too many questions that wake me out of a restless sleep, overwhelming me at unseemly hours like 3:AM.   Questions that range from morbid, (“Do I really need these photos albums? Someone is just going to throw them out when I die”) to angry (“Why is the square footage constantly wrong on the apartment listings? This apartment is definitely NOT 350 SF.  Note to self – in NYC, always deduct at least 100 sf from what the listing states!), to despair masking as existential (“What am I doing here?”) This can be interpreted on both levels of spiritual to practical to a sack full of self-doubt. I mean, really, what am I doing here in this dark, studio apartment?   “Where do I belong?” Hawaii? Could I live there? I’ve always wanted to live in Spain. Why did I sign this lease?”)

Over the next six weeks, I slowly find a place for everything, come up with creative shelving, hunt down Crate & Barrel bargains on Craig’s List and make several trips to IKEA in Paramus, Elizabeth and Red Hook. 

After four years, I finally I have all my things in one place, with the exception of my Peter Beard signed print that is stowed in someone’s garage in Los Angeles.  For the first time in many years, I don't feel like my life is one big diaspora.


I'm further downsized and compact, and this apartment, which I refer to as The Garden, is really super cute.  My landlord is actually a very nice man, (although his wife tends to light into him every other day).  The Yankees fan across the hall is a complete stoner, so much so that there are times when I arrive home and MY apartment smells like pot. The light in my bathroom is yet to be fixed, but as Victoria reminds me, "Kat, this is New York - we've been waiting for our landlord to fix a lamp in our apartment for eight years!". 

And truly, I was tremendously happy to see those books, covered in plastic acid-free wrappers, a weekend project I’m grateful for as I see how badly the movers have handled everything despite my careful labeling.  I remembered all of my friends, gleefully recalling where and when I had found certain prizes while I examine the spines and page through to my favorite passages.


As I was lying awake one night, with those eternal questions zipping through my brain, this one popped in “Am I to be toting around these heavy boxes of books and curios all my days, items consolidated over time constituting my life? They are so heavy!”  I considered selling them.  It was Gandhi and that little box, whom I admired so much more as I shuffled these boxes from one end of the room to the other, but a friend advised that one day I would find that house and I’d want my books around me then. 


And so … even though the trips to yet a new storage unit, this one in Brooklyn, are bewildering, I know there is another move in my future.

For now, I'm waiting for the sun to come out and enjoying the lovely little space I've created.