The movers are taking L’s furniture out of brook hollow this morning. Its something I knew was going to happen, she had been there off and on for a few weeks bundling her fragile things in bubble wrap so its not a surprise, but I’m feeling a bit hollowed out as the movers empty the house.

When they finish, there will be just the bedroom furniture, a few files in the office, the dining table, and the tv stands. Everything else I have either donated, stored or landfilled. The house will not have been this entry since August of 2008 when I moved in.

I’m trying to remember that first day just arriving from Virginia, sleeping bag on the floor, a few suitcases full of clothes, maybe I was as excited/anxious/worried as I am today. I can’t really remember. I do remember sitting on the top stair the next morning, making the lists of things to do…get electricity…go to new faculty orientation, things like that I suppose. It took my daughters coming to help unload the pods box and paint my living room wall blue to make it feel like it was going to be ok, it was going to be home.

And it was home. That safe-ish kind of space I retreated to during the turmoils that followed, it was a shield of sorts, but it became a springboard when I let the beautiful morning light tell me to paint, and make, and write there. I think I was more “me” at that time than I had ever been in my life. I had confidence, I had an openness and fearlessness that I hadn’t had before. Now I find myself trying to figure out where that went?

The house gradually changed from studio to living space when Lael moved, and in the last year it started transforming into a more proper, more formal space with her furniture and choices of colors and patterns for the living room. I was hoping to make her happy with the place, something I had somehow not done when she first moved in, but had recently learned how important having her things around her was to her.

Looking back, my efforts were too little and too late and in the end, neither of us was happy as covid turned the once creative space into a bunker to hunker down against the virus. Hunkering while being unhappy proved a poor combination for both of us, which leads to todays emptying-out. I’ll return home today and find, mostly nothing. I’ll sit on the top stair and remember Bella sitting next to me in the morning light, rolling over for a tummy scratch, I miss her in the house, dogs always welcome you home.

I allow myself some time to feel the emptying, which will be be complete when the movers return to take the rest of my things to storage soon. I’ll be working to remember the good things about brook hollow and think less about the painful things that happened there, maybe that will work, but I’m thinking that until the trail house takes shape and reveals its potential, I’ll have the happy and painful memories of brook hollow in mind.

Places have an energy about them that gets shaped by what occurs in them I think. The energy of a place is forever changed by us, sometimes physically, sometimes spiritually, but it always seems to be evolving. I’ll work to evolve too, to become a better version maybe a true-er version of me. We’ll see how it goes.

I hope you all are in a place that inspires and protects you today, wrap yourselves in the positive energy of your place and contribute a bit to it, the next occupant will feel it and hopefully pay it forward themselves.

Be good to each other, watch out for each other.