The stuff of moving

I think I've discovered a new theorem. It goes something like this: the more stuff you have, the more stuff you have.

Perhaps I will go down in the annals of history with those important scientists like Bernoulli, whose theorem — that energy is conserved in a moving fluid — is not quite as influential as the stuff theorem. Or that Pythagoras guy with the a2 + b2 = c2 thingy.

The reason I know this theorem stuff is true is that I have packed and thrown away enough stuff in the past month to — as they say — sink a ship.

Earlier this spring I came to the conclusion my house where I lived for 18 years was too big for just me and my dog. At 2,800 square feet, with multiple decks, a lawn that took two hours to mow and enough maple trees that shed leaves, berries, those helicopter things and bark to keep a person busy with a rake a broom year round.

So up went the for-sale sign, and lo and behold, the place sold within six weeks. During the time my house was for sale people would ask, "what are your plans?" Plans? I hadn't really made any. Which meant when the house sold I was … well, homeless.

Fortunately I found a rental home that was amenable to having a dog and a couple of cats as housemates. Unfortunately, it was (is) slightly over 1,000 square feet.

Do the math and it becomes clear stuff that was in the 2,800 square foot house just wasn't going to squeeze into the 1,000 square footer. Not if I wanted to get in, as well.

The answer, I learned, is to have a garage sale. It's easy, all the garage-sale gurus said. Not, I thought, when you have 18 years worth of stuff to sort through and decide what to sell and what not to sell.

Here's how that went: Daughter No. 1 who came home from Seattle to sort through her stuff, which all tolled, could have filled a room and included school papers and trinkets from the first grade: "I may need that, don't throw it away," or "You're not going to sell that, are you?"

Daughter No. 2, living at home for the past year, whose stuff from her apartment was still stacked in the garage: "Need that, need that, need that …. "

After several weekends of sorting, we finally had what I will eventually write a book about called, "My First Garage Sale." No one told me, for instance, that I needed to be ready a day before the sale for the "early shoppers."

The garage sale under our belts, we began to tackle The Move. Again, sorting what needed to go into the storage unit and what needed to go to the rental house meant oohing and aahing over every little doodad in the house.

I swear I spent two solid months preparing for The Move, yet when moving day arrived, we were not yet totally packed. After all the furniture and big items were out of the house, I assured the movers I could take care of the odds and ends.

Odds and ends are the same as stuff. The more odds and ends I moved out of one house into the other, the more odds and ends there were. For some strange reason (the theorem, I suppose), one box sitting in the living room turned into five boxes the next time I looked.

After checking and rechecking the house for stuff left behind, it was time to call the new owners to give them the keys. Just when I thought I might become emotional about the exchange, my daughter calls and asks "where is the dog food?" And there it was, in the only cupboard we forgot to check and recheck.

Now, you would think I would have been used to this moving situation, having had to move two daughters from dorm rooms and apartments during their college days. Both had more junk — sorry, stuff — squeezed into an 8' x 10' room than I ever thought possible.

But nothing really prepares one for a major move. For our family, it meant saying good-bye to a house we bought after moving from Seattle to Moses Lake. Our two daughters were only 9 and 11 and my husband was the new vocational director hired at Big Bend Community College. We came here excited to make new friends in our new community in our new house.

Five years ago my husband died, and even though I knew I should have before I sold the house, I hadn't really sorted through much of his stuff (there is that word again). More memories and a few tears shed while accomplishing that task.

I found myself in the past couple months, thinking about "last times:" the last time to play with the dog in the yard; the last time to take a morning walk through the neighborhood with my good friend Dave Campbell; the last time to have a Saturday night nacho feast while watching a movie (a Powell tradition); the last time to talk to the neighbors over the fence.

This is also the last My Turn I will write for the Columbia Basin Herald. Although my daughters cringed each time I wrote one of these columns, it has been a privilege to share with you my family's adventures. You have read our adventures of being stuck on the pass in a snowstorm, my getting into an accident while heading out for a story about auto body repair shops, our daughters' first driving experiences (yes, I did follow one of them during her first time driving alone), their high school and college graduations, dealing with my husband's brain tumor and subsequent death, the fact that young adults never have enough toilet paper in their apartments, our trip to Washington, D.C. over Sept. 11, 2001, dogs and skunks, and many more.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for being a friend during the tough times and for laughing during the best of times. I hope the My Turns I wrote reflected what most families face growing up together.

And I hope you don't find all those My Turns tucked away in some box when you decide to pack up all your stuff for the big Move.

Because the more stuff you have, the more stuff you have.

Mary's Powell's last day at the Herald was Friday. We wish her the best.