Probably the worst thing about moving is trying to be two places at once. Physically I’m still in Mississippi. Most of the packing is done, most of the painting is done. The last thirty+ years of our lives reside in boxes in storage, just waiting. If nothing odd happens, in less than two weeks I’ll be making the trip up to New York to close on the new house. Mentally, at least half the time I’m already there. There’s a lot to do before we can move in and part of the reason I’ll be there is so I can be be working on that, but that’s later. Mentally I go over and over it all, trying to plan the best strategies for getting it all done as quickly as possible.

And all that is just half the battle. The rest is realizing that neither of us has much clue as to how to survive a winter—a real winter, as opposed to the cooling-off period we’re more familiar with– and have we taken leave of our senses? Probably, but still going. Helpful people have been helpful—snow boots, yes, warm overcoats, yes. Gloves. Snow tires. What a concept. Oil furnaces. Pellet stoves. Clearing the ice berms. How to shovel snow. Where to shovel it to. What has to be shoveled. What doesn’t.

Factor in that Yamada Monogatari: The War God’s Son will be hitting the stores right around the time I’ll be hitting the road.

Zen says “Be Here Now,” and I ain’t. A good bit of the time I’m a thousand miles away. Which is unfortunate, since there’s still a good bit to do here before I’ll even get a chance to work on everything there. It’s disrupting and stressful and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up. If all goes well, the time will run out before I do. Here’s hoping.