Moving Became a Family Adventure

by Jon Remmerde

I finished my work on the windows of the intake house for the day and walked up to the house to see how packing to move from Oregon to Colorado was going. I had planned to start early, dispose of everything we decided not to take with us, pack everything quickly and efficiently, and begin loading our pickup and a rental truck early. I was in the habit of treating a move as something to get through, a necessary but not very pleasant way of getting from one place to the next, with tension created by a sense of fleeting time, and without a great deal of joy in the process.

Laura and I had turned much of the move over to our daughters because they had asked if they could pack most of our possessions, and we were quite willing to let them. Juniper was fourteen then, and Amanda was twelve. They thought packing would be something fun to do, and Laura and I looked at it as an arduous chore.

When I walked into the house, Juniper and Amanda were packing their belongings and some of our common belongings. They weren’t paying much attention to my efficient plan. My habit of treating a move as something outside the process of living was on its way out the window. I was alarmed by the time Amanda and Juniper took to review the history of everything we owned before they packed it.

But I calmed my sense of alarm and observed the process of packing as my daughters approached it and listened to what they were saying, because I had learned long before that, in many areas, they were wiser than I was, without the often too practical perspectives and habits of adulthood that inhibit learning and joy.
As they gathered everything together to pack, they carefully considered each of our material possessions and its function and history. They took the upcoming move as an opportunity to solidify and review memories of their lives until then, our existence as a family until then, and to express respect and affection for our possessions and for our history as represented by our possessions. I was gradually overcome by the charm of the process of moving as my daughters approached it. I looked again at our schedule, and I knew we would find time to do all the work of the move the way they were doing it.

I began to look forward, each day, to seeing what had been achieved by the time I finished work, not just in the packing, but also in the thoughtful review of our family’s history that the process of sorting and packing brought about.

Juniper and Amanda packed all the books, stories, and poems they’d written and all their drawings and paintings. Juniper’s treasure box, that I had built from plywood for her several years before, was full of her works and very heavy. We agreed she would need another treasure box after we moved. Amanda had never asked for a treasure box but was content with cardboard boxes to pack all her works in. Their works were an important part of what they had been doing nearly all their lives, and part of packing them became a joyful review and discussion of the memories the review stimulated.

One day after work, I walked into Amanda’s area of the downstairs. She and Juniper were sorting and packing books. Amanda held up Wind in the Willows. She asked me, “Do you remember when we got this book?”

“I don’t remember. It must have been when you were very young, because I read it aloud to you long before either of you learned to read.”

Juniper said, “You read it to us four times.”
Amanda said, “Do you remember the last time, Daddy? Jim Wood was staying with us at Whitney then.”

“I do remember. Jim and I cut and sold firewood in the daytime, and he listened while I read to you in the evenings. Snow got so deep, we couldn’t get over to the timber to cut wood anymore, but Jim wasn’t ready to leave until we finished the book. That was a good time. I never really wanted the book to end.”

Juniper said, “A really good book, I never want it to end, but the nice thing, after a while, you can start over and read it again.”
Amanda said, “Jim stayed over in the hunting cabin. You played chess with him over there after dinner every day, and you and Jim started teaching us to play chess. Then we all crossed the road, and you read to us at bedtime.”

Friends and relatives were with us as we packed. “Grandma gave me this horse when I was six. You and Mama gave me this one when I was eight. Its leg broke, and you glued it four times, but the glue never held, so I taped it together. The tape’s pretty good but his leg wobbles a little. He can stand up, though.”
Friends and relatives came from eastern Oregon and from Nevada to visit. We hiked the mountain in central Oregon where we lived then, and we visited together into late hours. We didn’t do anything about formal home schooling classes. We all knew there was plenty of learning going on for all of us, and it didn’t matter if we called it Geography or Math or English or lessons in memories, family, and love.

Juniper and Amanda made up new plays and performed them for family and visitors. We all knew it might be a long time before we could get together with some of our friends again. Friends and relatives left, and we returned to packing, to working, to hiking the mountain and saying goodby to the mountain and all the wildlife and all the memories there.
Amanda sang one of her own songs while she packed books. She said, “We haven’t had a story time for a long time. We get too busy packing. Let’s plan a story time tonight. If we plan it, we’ll do it.”
For story time that evening, Amanda read a story she thought up while walking Bridge Creek trail with Thorn, our dog, and wrote down when she got home. I read a new essay. Juniper made up a story on the spot, and Laura read a new poem. Outside, cold winds blew spring snow against the house, but inside we were warm and at home.
When it was time, we packed everything into a rented truck and our pickup and moved to Colorado to another, even taller mountain.
Through all the packing, loading, driving, and settling into our new home, we had room and time for living, for joy. The move was smoother and more full of rewards for me than any move I had ever made because I shed old ways of looking at the world. I watched my daughters and followed their example of how to make our home not a place, but the feeling and the history of our family, the good times of being together in a friendly and supportive world as we made our way forward in our lives. Moving from one place to another became part of our living and as creative and enjoyable as any time of our existence.

About the author:
Jon Remmerde writes. He writes essays, poems, songs and books.
His web site, remmerde.com is the best place to connect with Jon and his work.
His essays and writings have been published in dozens of magazines and newspapers including The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, The Doula, Men’s Fitness, and many others. He and his wife homeschooled/unschooled their two daughters and he shares many stories about their unique experiences. Visit them:
http://www.remmerde.com