Ravie’s Raincheck
So, we didn’t exactly make it out on our planned June 2nd date.
We could have.
But my saintly landlord took one look at the chaos we were drowning in and gave us one extra day, rent-free, to pack up Ravie with a bit less stress.
Ravie was pretty much ready to roll. But as anyone who’s ever moved knows…
THERE ARE ALWAYS A THOUSAND LITTLE THINGS.
The cleaning alone is endless. You continue to find nooks and crannies filled with dead skin cells, bread crumbs and curly pubic hair.
And then comes the sorting: what’s going, what’s staying.
In theory? The things we want would fit.
In practice? SPACE FILLS FAST.
Suddenly, we’re standing in the middle of the room saying things like: “Shit. Guess this has to go...”
That’s how I ended up parting with treasures like my sick-ass Creuset enameled cast iron pot that gave birth to my sourdough journey, my 1000W Ninja blender that didn’t ever give a shit about frozen fruit, the small but noble assembly of tools I’d been collecting over the years, metal-tip dartboard, skis, and bikes, one of which i had bought when i first arrived in Portland and used to delivery for postmates during the lockdown.
All casualties of Rav 4 cubic footage.
And the books. I’d been slowly building a little library of my favorite classics, which humbly filled a three tier bookshelf. All gone in one swoop for twenty bucks to some kid. Twenty. If you’d bought them all at Powell’s, you’d be out hundreds of dollars. But the kid was a cool cat, the type whose socially awkward but has no fear of expressing himself behind closed doors.
The plants I’d been fostering? Those went to a dude in a Mini Cooper. There were so many, that after they were loaded, he couldn’t see out the rearview or the passenger window. Forty bucks for the whole jungle.
But hell, fuck it.
Maybe it’s that silent cosmic joke: everything is temporary. Our belongings, our relationships and even our carefully arranged identities. You can love something, care for it, assign it purpose, but in the end, it either fits in the back of the Rav4, or it don’t.
You trade plants for gas money, books for space, tools for leg room until what’s left ain’t the cast iron or the dartboard or the books, but the freedom that remains when you’ve given it all away.
