Moving
Beach House at the Midland. Photo by Margaret Burke - February 22, 2022
The funniest thing that happens when going through your own personal belongings is finding the items that you most want to play with. Sitting on floor pillows as the contents of my life are parsed into various boxes as I write this. The powdery snow dancing outside my windows as I try to decide which books are to be donated. While going through LPs, I came across an unopened copy of Kevin Morby's Sundowner. I decided to open it and put it on. A Kansas-made album for a snowy Kansas day in a Kansas home.
A giant chapter is coming to an end for me. Moving away from Lawrence, Kansas, far off to Anchorage, Alaska. Ending not just the last four years of living in a town I consider a home but leaving my 20s. I used to think that I missed the opportunity to live in a big city while in my 20s. The glamour of paying high rent while stumbling out of bars at 4 am was projected on me growing up. I thought at some point that was something I wanted.
What I thought I wanted and what I needed were two different things. After living in places that were not much of my first choices, Lawrence was the place I picked. I would tell people that if I had to live in Kansas, I would live there. It is a comfortable place to live a slightly bohemian life where you can still pay rent and stumble out of the bars. Just only at around 2 am.
Lawrence provided a place to let me grow up to be a more self-aware and less selfish person. What kept me here wasn't the lifestyle but the friends I made here. People liked my goofy sense of humor instead of making fun of me for it. Learning that sensitivity is a strength and something to cultivate. The shows helped me forget my anxieties for a bit. Drinking coffee at the various shops. Working at the library on Sundays while I chatted with my coworkers about music, life, and which annoying thing happened that week.
As I go through my belongings, I see various parts of my dreams and visions of myself. The keyboard I bought off of Craigslist for eighty bucks in 2017. It is the same kind that Beach House used on some of their first albums. I was hoping to start up a band or even a solo project. That said keyboard remained under my bed, unplayed. The digital camera I bought with money was saved when I was 18 years old. I was never in love with the camera but only really used it for some classes in art school. The various books, records, art supplies, clothes, and other items all processed a belief that I would become them if I were to own them.
In some ways, I feel as though I am dying. Not knowing what is to come next as a war is brewing in Ukraine, the pandemic still raging, and the ongoing oppression that weaves into our lives under capitalism. I also understand that there may be people I may never see again as I move across a continent.
Death always terrified me. As a child, I would be so scared to go to sleep because I was afraid that I wouldn't wake up again. This anxiety and dread have lived through me and crept behind me. The Grim Reaper hung out while I went about my days. It is not actually being killed but more of a reminder that I wasn't living life to the fullest. Regret of not taking advantage of having fun, my dwelling worth through my youth as I age, and feeling that life ends at 30.
I am in what astrologers would call my Saturn's Return. The sober reminder that I am not getting younger and growing up. Taking responsibility for my own life while understanding I cannot control what is beyond me. It is strange as I let go of that control; things fell into place quickly. life has begun to feel magical again. This doesn't mean ignoring hard work and critical thinking; both components play a part in putting things into place. Having this understanding that there are other forces at play that are happening and to trust the process.
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One of the few things that have given me joy was giving my keyboard to a dear friend named Y. His mother was a classically trained pianist. She would try to lure my friend and his sister into practicing with quarters for a few minutes of play. Of course, this wasn't enough to persuade them. Now that he is grown, Y wants to learn how to play. Realizing that I wasn't ever going to play that instrument, I gifted it to him along with a piano workbook. Y sends me a clip of him playing a little bit of Bach he remembers a day later. While I felt the sting of a fantasy disappearing, I also felt a sense of peace that I made with the keyboard. Happy that someone is using it rather than collecting dust.
I gave a collection of Little House on the Prairie books to my best friend C. She lives out in a small country house with her husband and son. I remember when she mentioned how she dreamt of this life as a little girl, especially from reading those classics by Laura Ingalls Wilder. C didn't have any of the books, and I had barely touched them in ages. She plans to read them to her son as he grows up.
The camera I barely touched went to my other friend E. E is a talented filmmaker when he isn't cooking or coding. I decided to gift him my old camera from my undergrad school days. When I saw E's photos he took in the kitchen he works in, it brought me joy knowing that he was getting back into one of his passions. Especially to a kind, considerate soul that wants to better his life.
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On February 22, 2022 (or famously 2/22/22), I went to see one of my all-time favorite bands, Beach House play at the Midland in Kansas City, Missouri. It was my second time seeing them live, and it would be my last show before heading to Alaska. The Midland being this grand concert hall, was the perfect setting. While cold blasts of wind blew through the Power and Light District, I was reminded of memories from the summer before. The warm summer evenings where I would take the streetcar. After walking around in the cold, I got in the long line into the venue. There are a group of teenagers in front of me. They looked like eighteen/nineteen years old. Around the same age, I got into Beach House. It was weirdly coming into full circle seeing these younger fans go in. The same fans squeezed into the general admission area, standing on their toes to see the stage. Other attendees and I had a few years of shows under our belts, and I took to the mezzanine and balcony where we could see the show.
The songs were from albums I listened to throughout my 20s and songs off of Beach House's new album. Between the music, the gorgeous production design, and the overall vibes of the show, it was hands down the best show I had been to in ages. I found myself in the middle of my past self and where my future self was about to depart. It is vital to living no matter what happens, good or bad. I tried to push away the type of corny yet scary advice for so long. Now I am trying to embrace it gently instead.
Crying at random moments to spacing out while laying on the floor of my soon-to-be-old apartment, I am reminded of how temporary this life is. It is also worth noting while nothing lasts forever, it makes relationships, memories, and quiet moments like laying on the floor that much more precious.
