move-ment

Moving, requires effort. Requires inertia. Not to bring this into the realm of physics...It's really just common sense. To move, means you are in motion. I am in motion. I am in the process of moving.

I am surrounded by cardboard boxes, and clear tape placed on an ingenious spool connected to a handle and a metal grip that rips the tape off in nice, neat, ninety degree angles. I am moving.

I am the whitest Nomad you've ever encountered. My skin is not olive-colored or tanned by days journeyed under a full sun. That said, I have been moving...from place to place, home to home, since I was young enough to be carried, half-asleep, from the back-seat of a car.

The first place I called home (though I could hardly utter such words), was a hippy/Christian commune in southern Oregon. I remember chickens and the duck-pond, a soap-stone in the creek, and burning my leg on the exhaust pipe of a motorcycle.

We then moved to the bustleing town of Roseburg. A cow-town off I-5 which boasts live-stock, decent wine-country, and an A&W where the girls wore change-belts that I envied as a child.

We lived in several homes within the borders of that small town. The first home I remember, was a duplex. My neighbor-friend was a girl my age - there is a picture of us kissing at the bottom of a slide in my hallway. She fell out of her bed a couple of years later, and ended up brain damaged. After that, we lived in the house where Buddy ran away, and returned with a bullet hole through his neck; the vet said it was a miracle.

Buddy moved with us to our next home. The house with the huge maple in the front, from which we hung a long rope and a plastic horse. The neighbors with the Koi-fish pond lived up the hill. I remember the smell of lilacs, and tricking my brother into rolling out of bed because "...a train's coming...get off the tracks!"

Elm street was next, with its perfect parade of kids on bikes and sticky, plum-fallen sidewalks. That was my favorite house, I think.

I believe this set the course of my life as a future Nomad. If I tried to count, I believe I could give almost anyone reading this a run for their money, in times moved: Twenty six, if I didn't miss any...since then.

And this will be twenty nine since Roseburg's Elm Street. I forgot to mention that that's where I experienced the birth of my baby brother, David...First grade, and my own personal angel that pulled flowers to smell off of tree branches, protected me from mean neighborhood dogs, and walked me to school. Personal, real-life Angels should always be acknowledged.

I've come across several old things during this move: Clay-art snowmen, my son's tooth-fairy collection, post-cards from people I haven't spoken to in three years.

This is a good move; in-door laundry, wood floors, privacy. My soul needs this move like my Grandma's vases need bubble-wrap. I am moving. I am in motion. I am moving toward new things, new spaces...And, though no camel to get me there, I will move the mile and a half 'round the corner, set my tent stakes, and make camp...happily Nomadic, once more.