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February 2013

Waiting for a furniture delivery is, strangely enough, one of my favorite things to do. It sounds odd, as waiting is, for most people, an annoyance. In the same way I enjoy waiting around an airport, or waiting for the arrival of an old friend, I find comfort in the anticipation, in the hours before. It’s also the only way to get me to stay put for any duration of time, and unlike, say, my brother, I don’t have a problem with sitting still. For our recent bed delivery to Boston, I was given a window from 12 to 4 PM on a Friday afternoon. I arrived by eleven, stripped the bed, did some dusting, and was ready by 11:07, well before the first possible moment they might even arrive. But no matter, as there was half a book left to read, two stories to finish writing, and a new television with a DVD player on which to watch movies (I could not, nor did I care to, figure out how to connect the cable). My only regret was that it was a sunny, gorgeous day outside (which I would miss for the rest of the weekend) but at the time it seemed like it would go on and on, and I simply enjoyed the sun inside the condo, like a cat on a sun-drenched carpet.

I made myself an egg sandwich, and put on a pot of tea ~ Spicy Ginger. I measured some of the walls in the bathroom for new mirrors. There are always improvements to be made, but we are much further along than we were when I allowed my parents to take over the bulk of decorating (sorry, Mom). It will soon be time to paint the bedroom and replace the dated blinds, but for now this will suffice. I toyed with the idea of turning on some music, and half-heartedly flipped through a few radio stations, but soon shut it off. The quiet of solitude is a luxury I’m not often afforded. I wanted to enjoy this.

At noon, I laid down on the couch, returning to where I left off in ‘The Marriage Plot’ by Jeffrey Eugenides. The previous week of running around caught up with me quickly, and after only a few more pages I slipped into a nap, which only lasted about twenty minutes. It would be too good to be true to have them deliver this early in the allotted time-frame, but I still hoped, pacing the floor and periodically looking down the street for a delivery truck. The next three hours passed in much the same unremarkable manner, the sun slowly shifting through the bedroom window, lengthening along the hardwood floor.

Around 3:30 PM, the call arrived that they were down the street and bringing the bed in. I opened the front door and welcomed the two delivery men. (Any fantasy of hot, sexy, sweaty delivery men marching up to my bedroom was promptly destroyed by the reality of the situation, most notably the smell of the two guys, who certainly had the ‘sweaty’ part covered, but that was about it.) After some hesitation, they managed to maneuver the queen bed up the flight of stairs and around the tricky corner, and removed the old one (minus the frame – does anyone need a full frame? It seems to be welded into one piece, otherwise I’d have dissembled it and brought it home.) It was tough, unenviable work, and I gave them each a $20 bill for their troubles, particularly since I didn’t lift a finger to help (the smell was honestly just too much).

By 4:00 they had finished up. I made the bed, which filled the space perfectly, expanding to encompass the tufted head-board at last. I allowed myself one brief moment on it, wanting to save the big event until the evening. I was due to have dinner with my friend Alissa, so I poured myself a high-ball while savoring the silence.

We’ll go back step by step for this latest trip to Boston, beginning with this morning’s departure, as seen below, and the night before, as seen above. You can’t hear the wind that was whipping about in the background here, nor see the curtains billowing from said wind. It was a cold night, but I managed to keep warm.

One of the nice things of staying alone in the condo (or unsettling for those unsettled by silence) is the quiet afforded there. It’s a quiet that can be created almost anywhere, if you know how to silence the distractions. I leave the television and stereo off, and listen to the creaking of the floor, the chiming of a lamp shade pull, the rushing of the wind. A whole other world opens up when you start listening to the quiet.

In the magical time when the sky turns that deep blue at both the beginning and the end of the night, there is a moment of transition ~ the moment of the turn ~ when I look back and ahead. It’s the same sort of thing that happens at the start and finish of a weekend away.