I always find it amazing the common references I can come across in passages from different books that I read within a matter of days. This week, for example, in one day, I read a passage from a children’s book to my son that referenced Icarus, and then that afternoon a passage from a book on my nightstand also referencing Icarus.
This has happened many times. Within a week’s time-frame I’ll read, for example, about the higgs boson or about elephant communication through the stamping of feet, 60 miles apart in texts that have nothing, what-so-ever to do with one another. A cookbook and a novel, or a travel essay and a piece in Elle magazine. The universe bringing together loose ends, I suppose. Whatever the case, I always, always find it quite novel, and enlightening.
This week is no different. Even in the chaos of the move I have left two books out. I still try to find time to read to the baby, even though he’s never in the mood to sit and listen. While he plays quietly with his toys in his new room I read then. All of my knitting has been completely packed away for a week now, and even though I know where every last strand of it is, I haven’t liberated it from the moving containers. I know that my attention, patience, and energy just isn’t there. So in what little downtime I have had, I have found myself immersed in literature.
So, twice in one day, in hopes of expanding our already great imaginations, I encountered Icarus. In the children’s book the character in question is a seagull, covered in oil and about to die. She remembers a story of a man how made wings out of eagle feathers and flew so close to the sun that the wax he used to bond them together, and to himself, melts. She decides to do the same thing to try to saver he own life, and in the end dies, but not before making a new acquaintance promise to take care of her egg. In the book from my nightstand the protagonist sees herself as Icarus in his descent from the sun, falling from grace, and an inevitable death. The seagull never gets to that part of the story, even though that is her exact fate, and the young woman in my book never gets to her “death” but learns that she is only on a never ending ascent towards a happiness she never expected—could never see through her own self-doubt and insecurity.
I find that how these two stories intertwine Icarus into them to be quite remarkable. In the children’s book Icarus is used as a symbol of hope, and freedom, even though the unthinkable outcome remains the same, but unmentioned until fate intervenes. And in my book the Icarus is omnipresent pessimism, death certain, and foreseen failure, but the unexpected flight to the sun is the celebrated journey, even though it’s never spoken of in quite that way.
I realize that I’ve seen both sides of Icarus in our move. Let me rephrase: Our remodel and our move. I mentioned in a previous post, my mother commonly says, “It could be worse, you could be moving.” The worst of the move though is the time leading up to the move. I need to remember to read this before my next move, which will hopefully not be for a very, very long while. The baby didn’t want to cooperate. I was at the sad end of my emotional rope. Ramon, too, of course. Oh my God, the hundreds of hours of hard labor he poured into our new home. My mom helped me pack dozens of boxes, and tolerated my foul mood, all while cheerfully watching over my unhappy, insecure baby, so I could pack more boxes, and get ready for the movers. Then, the movers came. The picked everything up. The apartment was empty. To the new house, my mom sitting in the backyard with the Little Buckaroo happily playing in his pack-in-play under our huge awning in our huge backyard. Movers brought everything in, put felt feet on all of our furniture to protect the beautiful floor that my husband painstakingly laid by hand. The Little Buckaroo giggled all afternoon. We set-up is room, completely unpacking every last box of his, except for the books for a bookcase which he doesn’t yet have. In one day we were out of the old, and into the new.
On Saturday lots of work unpacking, a trip to Gymboree and a visit to the Easter Bunny which the Little Buckaroo was convinced was fairly traumatic. On Sunday we cleaned-up the apartment. Done. Completely done with that place and it’s funky lack of 70’s charm. We headed home, and my mom headed out for her home. Shortly thereafter I tripped over a Mega Blok (giant lego) in our new living room while holding the baby, and we were both pretty sure I had broken my big toe. More work on Monday, and on Monday night the lovely fellow how sold Ramon his dirt IMCA car came over and installed our brilliant new counter-tops: black granite with copper specs. Stunning. Running faucet with brilliant motion sensor.
By Tuesday we figured out that my Toe wasn’t broken, but something seriously bad has happened. Alas, I am stuck in my silly Crocs, which I consider house slippers, and then the rain comes in. Desperate for my lovely Hunter rain-boots I pull out the four most giant moving boxes we bought, all containing my precious shoes.
Of course I didn’t get to that box until too late in the day to utilize the boots, but the action was already in motion. After dinner I cleaned up, and loaded our new Kitchen-aid dishwasher, including putting all of the small bottle-parts and silverware in the third-rack (they come with those?) and adjusting the height of the second rack to accommodate cutlery (the rack just slides with the touch of a button! Who knew?). After washing dishes by hand for years the dishwasher is one of my favorite new things. Having a baby and washing everything by hand, then sterilizing it in the oven multiple times per day is mind-bogglingly exhausting. I started the dishwasher and the little light is the only indication it’s on it’s so quiet.
After my new favorite chore, I got to my last box of shoes. I knew this was my holy-grail of the moving boxes: The box with all the good shoes. Shoes I love, and haven’t seen for months and months. Carefully I opened it, and peeled back the flaps. LAMB, Dior, Louboutin, Manolo, Giuseppe, Stuart, Kate … my favorite names. there they were. I felt like this was better than Christmas as a child. The smell of the leather, the brightly colored boxes. The obscene price-tags I like to leave on, from the days when I could afford them. I cleaned the shelves of my armoire where they belong, and carefully Tetris-ed them into their new home. We’re here, we’ve got a long way to go with putting the house together, but we’re home. We’re really home. Faintly, I can hear the dishwasher draining in the background, and I feel immensely happy. Even with my toe broken, and a 9 month old baby on the verge of walking I can’t express my gratitude and happiness at having my beautiful pieces of art back. I know my shoe collection is nice, but wouldn’t come close to rivaling the like’s of Dalyn’s. It is still mine, and it is home, quasi broken-toe and all.
How could all of that moving be so hard? Why was my mood so foul? My emotions so frayed? The move is the hardest in the weeks and days leading up to the big day, but once it’s happened the weight has been lifted. Deadlines removed. There will always be more to get done, but there is time, and, even more importantly there is my amazing family.
My fall from grace happened first, I’m not the seagull. Now I am seeing the great glory of my husband’s amazing hard work and long hours of physical labor that went into building us this amazing new home. Our house is 106 years old. We have new walls, new plumbing, new ceilings, all new electrical, new lights, new chandelier, new rugs, a new hardwood floor through the entire house, a new kitchen, new cabinets, new—very old, vintage—stove, new refrigerator with two sweet bottom pull out freezer drawers, and a new dishwasher that is dead-quiet with bonus features I could have never dreamed of, but an old love, a beautiful family, and a very happy growing little boy with his very own back yard. We all feel the warmth of the sun inspiring our imagination and well-being. This spring, summer, house and future hold a lot of bright things for us.
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Well, I suppose I should be getting a move on to this week’s look: a quick headband I knit in one evening in the week leading up to the move, a princess seamed purple, black and gold plaid shirt that I made before starting Project-Hallway.com, some simple jeans, the boots I am oh-so-glad I wore on moving day as I dropped a huge sheet of glass, which shattered upon contact with my foot.
- Headband: Hand-knit, Blue Leaf Headband, A Free pattern by Adrienne Krey
- Earings: Black pearl studs, a gift from my sister and brother-in-law from one of his business trips to Manilla
- Shirt: Handmade using clearance costume fabric from Joanns, go figure. Custom pattern from before I knew enough to get myself into trouble.
- Pants: Jeans, Gap
- Boots: Frye, Veronica Short Black Boot
- Nail polish: Julep, Joan
Tarnished Copper - Formerly Project Hallway 