On Moving

 

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.