So, we’re going from a two room apartment in Manhattan, to a five room apartment in Rīga, and I don’t think this is what I actually had invisioned when I talked about “downsizing.” I’m downsizing Latvian style.
I’m apprehensively ecstatic, tilting from giddy to disbelieving and back to giddy as quickly as the weather here changes. I’m wondering if I can manage, or if, like a friend said, “you’ve got this.” Do I? all I know is, I’m facing down the glory of the unmanageable.
This past year, especially since Covid, many of us have felt the need to act on some long held “ideas” about quality vs. quantity, things vs. experiences, and what it is we want vs. what we really need. And so we read posts about throwing stuff away, cutting ties to people whom it no longer make sense to be tied, and organizing closets…
When in doubt, clean a closet.
It always works. While your depression might not be magically erradicated, the mere fact that you can see what you own, seems to make life more manageable. And just having things be manageable, has been a standard for years now. But could unmanageable be better?
Unmanageable is the place we go when we bite of more than we can chew, when we didn’t do our homework, and when the world just overwhelms us with its infinite capacity to fuck things up. It’s also that “edge” everyone’s always talking about, the pushing the boundaries place where we’re in doubt about our abilities, again.
Then too it’s the place we go to dig deep within ourselves, and when we don’t come up with anything, to ask for help. Not really a bad place to be.
Photo: Sabine
Done, moved, above one of the five rooms. A week ago, nothing here was known to me. Today, I’m sitting at a kitchen table, in an “eat-in” kitchen, looking out on this. It all seems strangely familiar, or am I just a chameleon, able to “blend in,” to become part of the scenery? Yes, and no.
Upon arrival in Latvia, we had to quarantine for 14 days. This is the 11th day of what feels to us like quarantine, part two. Honestly, I’m dying to take my face mask off. I’ve acquired a sort of acne on my chin from five months of wearing a face mask in New York.
I wouldn’t have thought that laundry detergent was going to be the thing that would take me down; create in me that moment of panic that says, “uh oh, now you’ve gone and done it.” How could something so banal cause me to doubt the wisdom of a decision such a long time coming. Nevertheless, there’s an existential crisis on aisle 9.
Prue Stent