Category Archives: moving

Roots

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Roots

“There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children – one is roots, and the other, wings.” Hooding Carter

When I moved, I got rid of a lot of stuff that connected me to my past. I feel uprooted. You only miss your home, when you don’t have it anymore.

On the last day in my house, I picked a plant and pulled it out of the ground carefully keeping the roots. It is an old country tradition. I’m not sure from what old country it stems from. “Always carry a plant and you will have roots somewhere.”

People aren’t plants. Why do we speak of having roots? Roots are deep and hard to tear apart. Roots are your past They are where you came from and in them is the direction you are going.

You can change a lot of things about yourself  – the clothes you wear, the things you say, the knowledge you have, the places you visit and live, the people in your life, the degrees you earn and businesses you start. But roots are the foundation of your existence.

Will I ever have roots again? The unease of not having a home makes you have to learn to embrace the struggle to make a home wherever you may live. Home may not always be a place. Home is an experience of belonging, a feeling of being whole and known. Traveling a lot makes me feel that I may not be defined by one place anymore. .Maybe home is leaving a piece of your heart wherever you live and wherever you go.

Fly safe,

JAZ

Banksy’s First Night In The New House

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Banksy’s first night in the new house

“She took a step and didn’t want to take any more, but she did.”
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Dogs don’t understand concepts like moving. They don’t even understand that when you leave the house you are coming back. Moving can be more stressful on a dog than kids. I have a particularly nervous puppy. He is small and he can squeeze through most little spaces when in panic mode. Also Banksy is – to put it delicately, not that smart. I don’t think he is well equipped with coping mechanisms.

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He did not do well with the packing and sorting stage which went on for a while. It was a big house. People were coming and going and he was not happy as big pieces of furniture that I gave away left the house. He did not like all the plastic bags and boxes of stuff around. He fell into psychological chaos – barking much more, having a lot of accidents, following me around the house and never leaving my side, except to rip up any paper he could find.

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Also, he is not a fan of stairs,. Both small and large flights elicit heavy breathing then crying followed by piercing yelps.

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The new house has two and half flights of steps and one of them is not small dog or child friendly. Banksy is not a problem solver. When he thinks there is a problem the heavy breathing/crying begins.

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Banksy stayed with a friend during the three days of moving and packing. Moving is the most stressful thing a person can do and he was already feeling it. An open door is the time for him to flee if someone decides to go out and leave him in the kitchen with music on. it was better not to have him around during the actual move.

Banksy arrived at the new house with workers there. I had set up a space with his stuff. He looked around and fell asleep.

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I took him outside and within one minute he had a found a way out to the street and was running down the block. I’m sure he was trying to get home. All the stairs were freaking him out. He went back to sleep. He didn’t feel like playing with toys. He woke up again ate something and looked around. He saw that we were still here and he went back to sleep. I say it’s ok every five minutes.

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.  Banksy is a hyperactive puppy and while all this sleeping makes him a good neighbor, he is clearly depressed. He doesn’t want to walk. He doesn’t like the sand, wind, cars and bikes and people.

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Instead of quiet Mandeville Canyon we are living in a beach community in the middle of the summer. There are loud scary noises coming from every direction. He is exhausted from being on alert all the time.

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Banksy has a lot of fears of things that don’t really present any harm to him. Today Banksy played with his toys and has reluctantly gone up and down the steps a few times.  Life is getting better.  Once he learns to stay positive and embrace the full reality of the move he will be fine.

Fly safe,

JAZ

Things I Will Miss, Things I Will Not Miss

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Things I Will Miss, Things I Will Not  Miss
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter how much, how often, or how closely you keep an eye on things because you can’t control it. Sometimes things and people just go. Just like that.” Cecilia Ahern

Things I Will Miss

Wide open spaces, all my big art, large rooms, my kitchen table that I made from collecting sea glass on the beach with my family and friends one summer, walking down my driveway to get the paper on Sunday, high ceilings, green everything outside, nature, flowers, avocado and lemon trees, my stuff,  not needing window coverings, my big bedroom,  Chickenman, my garbage cans,  my gas station, Miripolsky,  my big driveway to park in, my photo albums, parrot sculpture, from old car parts, funny chair, Mandeville Christmas “kindergarten sex”, lights, all my record albums on the wall, Twenty Sixth Street Mart, my large wall construction,  quiet, walking my dog in the country, lots of trees and flowers, nearby hiking trails, cello, safety, smelling jasmine ( always reminds me of Greece).

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Things I Will Not Miss

Water damage, middle of the night coyote kills, screaming animals,  smoke alarm going off in the middle of the night for no reason, setting my burglar alarm off, rattlesnakes, more water damage, weird bugs, mice, lizards in the house, bees,  ants, dead animals in the driveway, big orange garden snakes, brush clearance, fire safety, broken pipes, even more water damage, phone problem that no one can fix, laundry problem that took weeks to diagnose and fix,  mold, mold testing, mold repair,  more ants, constant house maintenance, backyard and pool maintenance, big animals running alongside my car at night.

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Things I Will Miss

Vicente foods, neighbors, my gas station, my Dry Bar girls, art I will have no more from for, kid art, my gym,  Fear No Art, cute deer in driveway, morning light, family memories, living in the country in the city, Ernie, coming home to my beautiful house after a long trip,  nests with baby birds, my squirrels, the way the light hits my green vintage vases on my kitchen window in the morning when I’m making coffee, cheap art from our first house, the parrots that fly by around 5pm,  my juice bar, Brian Andreas, family memories, photographs I have no room for, walking my dog up on Westridge and watching the sunset, my kids stopping by to hang out in their rooms, my giant closet and all the other closets, the space to keep everything,

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Things I Will Not Miss

Coyotes in driveway stalking my dog, deer jumping in front of my car (sorry), the drive to Silverlake, actually the drive to anywhere I have to be, having to pass the 405 on Sepulveda, rush hour traffic on Sunset ( which starts at 230), 0possum, raccoons, seeing dead animals on the road every morning,  more broken pipes, BIKERS, house construction blocking the road- all the time, my air conditioning units, seeing prisoners do brush clearance,  weird refrigerator leak,  dark roads, driving up the canyon at night in the pouring rain, fallen trees blocking the road, something is  broken and needs to be repaired, fixed or replaced for a lot of money.

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Fly safe,

JAZ

Act ll – Downsizing in LA

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Act ll Downsizing in LA

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” Buddha (This has always been one of my favorite quotes.)

The Latin word for baggage is “impedimenta.” which means things that get in the way of forward movement. Self help books say that we must get rid of our baggage to lighten the way to the new.

I am moving to a smaller house and “downsizing. “Downsizing conjures up an image of a life that is descending. The American dream has trained us to believe that bigger is better.

I no longer have the luxury of a ton of storage space for all my extra stuff.The amount of things you can accumulate after living in one big house for a long time is overwhelming. Daily I sift through photos, memories and keepsakes to see what aspects of my former identity will transfer into my new life. The emotional anxiety of releasing your history is tough. I am definitely leaving a little bit of who I was in this house. I am trying to only bring things that will add real value to my life.

The downsize was not my choice but an unavoidable life change. I can’t ignore the circumstances that brought me here but it is going to be different. I am going to be living in a much smaller house a block from the beach. It is a neighborhood where you can walk to Starbucks and restaurants. I haven’t lived in a walking neighborhood since moving from New York. I am a little excited to be able to walk on the beach every day and become a regular at the cool trendy restaurants popping up nearby.

So I just have to get through this miserable, uncomfortable, painful part of life to move into this cool house I found. Maybe our paths were never meant to be straight and the unexpected places we find ourselves are just where we are supposed to be.

Fly safe,

JAZ

A Heartbreaking Work Of Getting Rid Of Books

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A heartbreaking work of getting rid of books.

“A book can wait a thousand years unread until the right reader comes along.” George Steiner

I identify myself as a reader so it is particularly hard to get rid of my books. As a visual learner, reading is the way I make sense of the world. I am at ease with books around me.

There is a special bookcase in my house of books I have read and loved. Books aren’t impersonal objects to me.They carry in their pages the moments of my life. They were in suitcases with me on my trips. I found one from my honeymoon, my college favorites, books I read to my children, books that made the trip from New York to LA so many years ago and books that changed my life. I went through my books one by one. There was a lot of stuff in the pages. I found quotes that I had written down on little pieces of paper, theatre tickets, flower petals, letters and photos.

Inside the books themselves were worlds so much bigger than mine – Hemingway’s Paris, Bulgakov’s Moscow, Kazanzakis’ Zorba and Tolstoys’ Anna Karenina. The list is endless.There were characters that felt like I did about things from authors like  Kerouac, Eggars, Rand, Salinger, Hughes, Frankl, Vonnegut, Potok, Conroy,  Didion, Fitzgerald, Leibowitz and Wolfe. It was authors like Marquez, Llosa, Proust, Allende, Cervantes, Camus, Murakami and Hesse that made me want to see the world they came from. My most tattered book is “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. It is a book I often reread when I need any kind of self-help or understanding about the world.

I would never get rid of books willingly. Paperbacks and fast reads were the easiest to part with, I had a hard time with unread books. I have a lot of them on my night table that I want to read but haven’t gotten to yet. I have to read every book I have ever bought eventually. A book doesn’t have to be read by a certain date.  Whenever I read it is always the right time. Classics, favorites, Pulitzer Prize winners, coffee table art and travel books are still with me. Some will stay in storage for a while because I can’t part with them yet.

Books connect us  and explain things in ways that I often can’t. I asked my kids what they wanted from the house. My son said,”Ill take all your books.“

Fly safe,

JAZ

What Do I Really Need? Packing Up My Life In Los Angeles

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What Do I Really Need? Packing Up My Life In Los Angeles

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.” Tupac Shakur

I’m a traveler so I pack all the time but the process of moving out of a house you have lived in for a long time seems insurmountable. It keeps you constantly focused and in the present of what is important. What is the most beautiful or most practical? How many clothes do I actually need? And why do I have so many other versions of almost the same thing? How many books do I really love? Do I need a suitcase collection?

I felt lucky to have boxes of memories of happy moments and remembrances of people who have died or passed through my life. I’m more of a hoarder than a minimilst when it comes to stuff. It is interesting to see the randomness of things we hold on to. The more stuff you have, the more resources and energy you spend taking care of them. I notice that there are a lot of things that are just taking up space in my life.

The problem with being the person left in the house is that you are the one to deal with all the accumulated memories.  I have cleaned out the garage once and the surfboards bicycles, skiing and camping equipment, musical instruments and some suitcases are long gone. It is a lot of memories for one lifetime.

What do I really need? For such a long time I have lived my life for other people.  It is a scary but liberating question. What is right for me? When you claw back some space from the overwhelming demands of other people in your life, you start to think about your own needs. I need to feel safe. I need light and walls to hang my art. I need to hear and be heard, love and be loved. I need to be able to travel.

Eventually I will pack up the whole house. There is always a sadness about packing up a house. I expect to hear music when something big is happening- an overture that takes you to the next step in your life. But  after the chaos, the real change always happens quietly.

How good it will feel to have it all in one place, all I really need. Then I can move ahead. When you are packing, you see how much stuff you have accumulated in your life that is unimportant. Im learning what is important is the moments that the people who loved you and you loved are together. Not stuff, but memories that you take with you, wherever you may go.

Fly safe,

JAZ

The House In Los Angeles

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`The House in Los Angeles

“Walking on a path of uncertainties, Shuffling on the probabilities of uncertainties, Waging on the possibilities of uncertainties,Waiting for the occurrences of uncertainties, Solving the mysteries of wandering uncertainties, We move, lead and live’’Pushpa Rana

I’ve learned as I get older that no matter how much I want to hold on to the past – things change. If we stay where we are, when something new is trying to get in, we will get stuck or that is what I tell myself anyway.

The house was the last remnant that a family existed. To my ex husband, it was an inanimate object. But to me it was as much a part of the family memories as the people who lived in it.

I was very scared to be in this house alone when he first left but I had to be brave for my daughter who was still here. I have a lot of safety issues and anxiety about being alone and having to face those on top of the loss was very hard. But I had this heavy thing hanging on top of me that I was the only adult in the house responsible for my daughter who was still home and my son in college.

My fear did often evolve into anxiety or panic. But gradually as the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months and years, we encountered many of the little things that malfunction in a home, car accidents, emotional and health problems, illness, death, holidays, graduations and we survived, even conquered them. And with each incident my self-confidence grew and my fear subsided.

He could not afford to give me the house so I have lived with its impending loss for a while.–the loss of familiar, beautiful well-loved surroundings, the neighborhood, the routine, and the security of owning a house.

Driving up and down the street now, I know I will never see another Mandeville Christmas light competition. There are financial and age restraints so I will not live the way I live now which makes the emotional situation much worse. I will miss the pale cast of light in the morning which illuminates my house as the day goes on. I will miss seeing every shade of green from my windows  – olive, jade, leaf, kiwi, lime, a silver-green and a bright pistachio. i will miss the wide open spaces and high ceilings and walls that have my big art on them.
I imagine that the physically moving out of the house alone will be the hardest thing I will ever do.

I will be mourning the loss of living somewhere that I loved. I will be mourning the intact family life, roots, values, security and inheritance that I couldn’t give my kids. I expected to have grandchildren, showers, holidays and birthday parties in this house. I will miss the children who became adults here. I will be mourning the loss of me, the person I was when I lived in this house. I once wanted to grow old here with the boy I met when I was 16.

Worse I will be mourning the loss of my memories. I have always had a bad memory and pieces will fade because the person who also remembers and the house won’t be here to trigger them.

When you have to get through something big, you must remember that you have tools – friendship, conscience, honesty and strength. You need to look at the mess and know that you will never completely get over it. It turns out that writing helps me reflect on my life and the changes I am making. Maybe as much as I wanted my roots to be in a house, my roots turn out to be in my travels, my stories and where I am going next. Maybe my roots turn out to be in the uncertainties of not knowing.

Fly safe,

JAZ