The Mayonnaise that Came in from the Cold

Moving always has its challenges. Along with divorce, marriage and pregnancy, this aspect of everyday life is fraught with stress and conflict. Ah, conflict! A word we all recognize in our search for writing tools. Without conflict, there is no story and certainly no point to the telling.

Humans grow and achieve, discover and innovate through conflict—the confronting and defeating of discouraging circumstances gives us opportunities to grow and achieve, find solutions and solve problems. Without conflict, testing or opposition, we tend to wallow in the marshmallow world of comfort zones.

When I moved earlier this year from the sunny shores to the high plains, I felt unnerved and insecure—out of my element. At the same time, excited and expectant of great things. Despite that trepidation and expectation, I was not prepared for the common realities of moving into an empty house with very little furnishings in my own possession.

One significant missing element was a refrigerator. The first few hours, the next day, were no problem. But with milk, yogurt, cream and mayonnaise in the picture, a cooler was the first choice because the fridge was scheduled for delivery in two weeks. While a cooler is fine on a picnic and great for the tailgate party, keeping the volatile mixture of raw eggs and oil at a safe temperature required much more than a bag of ice and a thin layer of Styrofoam.

 

Lightbulb moment. This may be the high plains but there’s snow in the front yard. 

 

Lightbulb flickers. Going outside every time a sandwich was on order when the temperature had dropped to 4° below began to wear thin. But one of the beauties of living in a small city in the high plains in the mountainous Midwest are the people. We learned that our appliance was delayed another few weeks. I presented my case. The manager of the local appliance store has provided a brand new fridge as a loaner until the one purchased makes its way to the empty space in my kitchen.

Have Books Will Move

Packed on their backs? In boxes too small?

Sandy Cody’s blog for Classic and Cozy Books a few weeks ago spoke of coming home. I’m writing this week about leaving home. 

This is not an uncommon experience for me, my husband or any of our clan. We pull up stakes periodically after establishing ourselves in a town or job, leaving behind good friends who promise to keep in touch and we welcome them to every new home, especially when they bring with them the treasure of shared memories and events—which they always do—or they send their offspring as representatives.

Wherever we go, we embrace the adventure and the chance to explore—not only our new territory but ourselves and our opportunities to meet new friends.

Prepared for packing-by size

The one category of possessions that go where we go? Our books! The number of boxes of books increases with each new home, rarely decreasing, even though I have a fondness for digital books.

A good 70% of the books I hoist into cardboard boxes are non-fiction for research in world and American history. They aren’t known as “heavy reading” without good reason. Some are the ubiquitous “coffee table” books of photographs with captions. These cannot be packed spine to spine. Nor can they be grouped together in larger boxes. The logistics of moving books takes the love of jigsaw puzzles to slip and slot books of all sizes into boxes that can be stacked in a cargo container.

Despite the number of boxes—well-over 50 by now—and the weight, there are very few books that haven’t made the cut. One never knows when a book about herbal medicine, the history of the oldest town in Wales, or quilting in Pennsylvania will be needed. However, an instruction manual for a database program or software application which are no longer current may find a good home with someone else.

As sometimes happens in a writer’s life, we are moving to a state that has attracted my interest as a setting in one of my novels, currently a manuscript—a work-in-progress, titled Dance by the Light of the Moon. Research is one thing, actual physical contact with the fictionalized setting is another.

Having moved so frequently during and since my childhood, I’ve had the extraordinary opportunity to experience places that also inspire my imagination as an adult. Who would have thought that a rock formation in a Welsh forest could spawn an eleven-book historical series?

Or the threat of a tornado in the high plains east of the Rocky Mountains to form the perfect setting for a post-Civil War romance juxtaposed against the lilac groves of the Maine woods?

But what would all those physical settings be without the inspiration of reading books by other writers whose imaginations were sparked by fishing from a small boat in the seas off the Caribbean islands or tramping through the sands of the Sahara in search of lost gold mines?