Here's a sermon I gave at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House in Provincetown in July. It's called On Moving.
Moving
is one of the most stressful things we can do, and yet we do it. There are
plenty of reasons for it, and most of the time, the reasons themselves are
stressful, like a birth or death, a job change, finances, aging or change in
marital status. Several of us UUMH members have moved recently, for various
reasons. How do we cope? Where are our support systems, and what do we learn in
the process? Moving takes us out of our comfort zone, exhausts us and jangles
our nerves, but the journey is worth it. This is especially true when we ask
for help and let it in.
I
moved to Provincetown in 1984 with a small car full of clothes and art supplies
and about $500 to my name. I came here for three reasons: I wanted to be near
the ocean, live in an LGBT-friendly community, and be in a place where the arts
are a big part of the scene. Provincetown fit the bill.
I
arrived on a rainy night in May and took an attic room in what would one day
become a very fancy inn but wasn’t then. (The towels were an unfortunate
brown). I was alone, without family or friends to rely on, and without the
structure of school. I was afraid and a little dejected when the town didn’t
roll out the red carpet for me. Yep, another young Lesbian comes to town. Let’s
issue a stamp. I’m not sure what I expected, exactly. I’d lived a relatively
sheltered, middle-class life until then. All I knew was that I needed
community, and this was a good place to find it. Maybe I was less courageous
than someone gay who’d live in a predominantly straight community, but my
promise to myself was that I’d live here for just a couple of years, then see
where I wanted to go next. I unpacked my toothbrush and contemplated where to
eat dinner. I’d left the door open a crack so I could smell the seaweed/salty
air. A big ginger cat with a light misting of water on his fur nonchalantly
strolled into my room and greeted my ankles. I nearly cried. I knew things
would work out somehow. That tiny connection to life eased my fear and
loneliness.
I
bought a copy of the Advocate and studied the want ads. My hands were black
with newspaper ink. I found a tiny cottage in North Truro, three jobs and the
way to the bar where I was sure I’d meet lots of lovely people. I had a very
busy summer. Romance, hard work, bronchitis.
The tiny cottage was not winterized, so in the fall I moved
to a studio apartment just behind the Meeting House. It was slightly more
luxurious than the cottage, with a little stove/fridge/sink combination, and a
bathroom where I could dry myself without bumping into the walls. It was still small,
so I made a Murphy bed to save space. I can’t recall whether I had a bureau for
my clothes, but I did find a used picnic table for my artwork. I had my priorities.
Moving to Provincetown from the wilds of North Truro felt like
a leap of faith. Not exactly in the closet, I felt slightly more committed to being
openly gay once I moved here. After all, my W2s and license would identify me
for years into the future as living in a gay Mecca. Fishing village.
Frenetic summer turned to quiet fall. I’d found a few
friends and adopted a kitten from a local astrologer who threw in a
relationship reading for me and Roxanne the Virgo cat. I was home. Again.
During the dark days of winter, I was introduced to the
UUMH. Some lovely older UU Lesbians threw a Christmas eve sleepover for a few
of us young women new to town. I approached the evening with trepidation but
had nothing to fear; it wasn’t going to be a weird or racy time. They gave us
fruitcake and eggnog. They took us to look at the holiday lights around town,
then brought my resistant self to the candle lighting service here at the
Meeting House. It was beautiful. My heart felt a soft clicking into place as I
discovered another level of connection to my new home. Within the year, I’d
joined you on a spiritual search for truth and meaning. I am so grateful for the
kindness, the warmth I feel as part of the Meeting House community. We never
know how important our words and actions are to those who’re alone or feel
alone on their journey. What would this Meeting House look like if we each brought
our beloved community to just one struggling soul?
After a few years, a few jobs, a few moves from apartments
to cottages and a windfall, I bought a condo in town. This move came after a
bout with cancer, so though I was on the mend, I was very tired. I’ve been
cancer free since 1991. It’s just the side effects of the treatment that get me
down.
I had practically no furniture, since I’d been hopping from
rental to rental. I had to buy virtually everything in person during a time
when Amazon had yet to make consumerism easy. Friends came with me to Hyannis and
coached me through the purchase of pots and pans, carpets, a futon and the other
furniture I’d put off acquiring for years. It made me think of being a
newlywed, choosing China and a toaster.
I came to the end of my windfall eventually, so I learned
how to begin my garden with seeds rather than plants, built my own shelves, and
scrounged second-hand shops. I fell in love with my home. The cat came with me
and loved it, too.
As I’ve said, after cancer and the treatments for it, I was
very tired. I still am. This invisible disability led me to become creative. I
rented out my house to folks who could afford a summer in Provincetown. This
meant moving every year to a little cottage or room in someone’s home, then
moving back in the fall. It was stressful, but oddly rewarding.
I got to live in different towns on Cape and meet wonderful
new people. I went crabbing with a 10-year-old girl while living in Chatham at
her mother’s house. I painted pictures of the moon outside my little cottage in
North Truro when the 23 years of hot flashes prevented me from enjoying hot,
sunny days. I kept bees with a friend who lived next door to another summer cottage.
I enjoyed the generosity of a potter in whose Eastham house I rented a basement
room. I sculpted stoneware mermaids in her workshop. She was patient (kind of)
when I exploded figurines in her kiln.
It was there that I first met, fell in love with and
adopted Halle Macaw, who’s been with me for 22 years now. Though I had cats
when I adopted this bird, she’s now the only familiar – I mean companion animal
– in my life. Moving with her is an experience, but she adapts remarkably well.
As long as she has her cozy cage and me feeding her bananas and pistachios,
she’s happy. I try to take a lesson from that. Home is where love lives.
As I said: stressful and rewarding. Eventually, it wasn’t
rewarding enough. I missed a year’s worth of rental income when Covid hit. I
was too afraid of the unknown, of having people with their germs in my home,
and of being away from the comforts of home if I were to get sick myself. Also,
now in my early sixties I just couldn’t face another hop back and forth. I
needed to be able to live in my own home, wherever that might be. I agonized for
about a month or two, then put my condo on the market.
Before listing it, my realtor advised me to get rid of a
third of my stuff to make the place look bigger, less personal. I’d lived in my
condo for thirty years, so I had accumulated plenty of stuff. I gulped, then donated
some big things and junked still more. It felt like turning myself inside out
like a pocket, but I did it. When it was done, the shelves of tired old
paperbacks and knick knacks I did not need gone, the garden raked free of
debris, the plastic and terracotta pots carted off, I was shocked to find I
didn’t miss any of it. I still don’t. Let me repeat that. I still don’t. We
need so little but gather so much. I feel lighter, less owned by my possessions
than appreciative of what I’ve kept.
I live in Harwich now, an hour south of Provincetown. It’s
a bit of a hike to services and singing practice, but I’ve traded the luxury of
living in the center of a thriving tourist town for something more sedate. Big
windows and a second bedroom with a Murphy bed tucked away to make room for an art
studio sold me. Following a long artistic dry spell, I’m working on a series of
paintings of the woods just outside my studio and will have a show at The
Commons in September. Has the move jump-started my creative process? I’m
inclined to think so. I live in a place where I don’t have to pack up and
leave. I’m home. Again. As Sarton says,
“Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and
density!”
Will I need to move sometime in the future? I don’t know.
Though I don’t want to, and I know how hard it is to pack up and go, I accept
that we’re not on this planet to stand still.
