empty nests

So I draped the beds and cleaned out yet another refrigerator and loaded the truck with its frost-flowered windshield (alas poor fern in the back) and set forth from the land of Farmers For Trump, crossing the Mississippi River and passing Dayton, Ohio, and singing that Keep Going song in my head. (But I did not stay at Sean's parents' house—there was no room—but at the Deluxe Inn, where I wished I could have shared the owners' curry dinner. It smelled so good.) I just kept going on. The next day dawned later than I would have liked, at like seven o'clock. It was windy and cloudy, but it didn't start to rain until later. And then it began to sleet somewhere in the hills of West Virginia. And then it began to snow in the hills of Pennsylvania. It was beautiful, but of course I could not stop to take a picture. While on a detour, creeping along behind a salt truck, I grabbed a pic. In case you don't believe me. 

 In every hour of the drive, I saw more vehicles, mainly semis, than I saw in the entire half year in the Ozarks. And in my head I was now singing "Take me back to Covid City where the people are masked and the streets are gritty./Oh, oh/ take me home." To the tune of Guns n Roses Paradise City. Perhaps you can understand why I don't need to play the radio. 

After blowing all over the road in New Jersey,  I could see Covid City beckoning silver in the late afternoon light (ie three o'clock) from across the Hudson. And I made it in time to have the building guys help me inside with my bits and bobs and my half-dead fern and my exercise bike. And then I totally caved and put my truck in a garage for a month for $1000. You read that right.  It was so worth it. And I fell on my bed—I had forgotten oh how comfortable it is—and looked at all the stuff I hadn't seen for eight months and thought, "Why do I even have this?" Shall we unpack that thought (to use a locution I abhor) or maybe should we do that after I actually unpack? I have been hauling the same duffel around since Hawaii. I seem to change venues but not clothes. But what with social distancing, who's to notice.