The Journey Begins

So can you call it vacation when you’ve been off for almost 2 months?  Yes, I think you can. Tomorrow we head off on a week-long adventure. We start with a train trip from Portland to Boston. I’ve always wanted to take a long train trip, but it’s always been seemingly silly to take all that vacation time just for the journey. Two things are different about this train trip journey.
1) I’m not working, so I’m not taking vacation time.  Nice.

2) I have a new-found appreciation for the journey itself. Depending on how this goes I could imagine taking another train trip, when I do actually have to take vacation time.
We leave Portland Monday at 08:00 and arrive in Boston Thursday at 20:00. We’ve got a bag of snacks, loaded up the digital toys with books and audio books, and even a few Masterpiece Theater episodes. Hopefully, we won’t want to watch tv, but if we do, we’re ready.  I’ve even got a nice knitting bag packed, working on a lightweight cardigan.

We have a sleeper car for the overnights, which comes with meal service, and early boarding. I’ve done some looking into the tricks about train travel.  Did you know you can bring your own beverages on, as long as you have a private room? And it makes sense to go claim a seat in the view car.  I even heard a story of someone who’d taken the train back to Portland and to their surprise, the dining car was separated part way, so they were without expected meals, so we have extra snacks.

After the trip out, we’ll meet our son and his girlfriend outside of Boston for a long weekend. We picked Boston before we knew he was going to school there, but after we decided Watertown NY was not likely an ideal vacation destination. So we’ll meet in Boston, and be tourists Thursday through Monday. Monday, we fly back to Portland.

I’m well through my 3 month time between jobs, having left one job in early April, and starting the next July 1.  This week's “vacation” is a nice reminder to use the time well, both during this next week, and for the remaining time off. I was feeling a little bad about all the time off, when someone reframed it for me. They suggested I was taking a sabbatical.  Hmm.

 I’ve coached people who are taking sabbaticals, encouraging them to use the time for self-betterment, through study, spiritual practice or discipline, and rest. We’ve been busy enough getting settled in a new city and life, that I haven’t done as much study and practice, but I have rested well. So now, I’ll focus on the study and the practice, at least for the next few months, and I’ll use this trip to set my intentions for my remaining time off.

That’s why journeys, in and of themselves, are good. They give us time to think and be, as opposed to doing. To be clear, I’m both skilled at doing, and enjoy it. And I enjoy the space I achieve when I’m just being. As Carl Lewis said, It's all about the journey, not the outcome.

Observations on our move - One Month

May 16.  It’s hard to believe, but we actually moved in April 16. And in the past month, I’ve learned and experienced many things about our new world. 

• While I’d gotten very efficient at mass shopping and cooking, I need to discard that way of planning and prepping food. This is due to several reasons..  
• For one thing, without a car, I’m not as likely to transport 30 days of groceries on my bike. 
• I’m back to cooking for 2 people, rather than 5.  
• There’s a farmer’s market 2 blocks away with spectacular produce, once a week.  Buying fresh produce only weekly is tricky. Must cook or use delicate things first, while hardy produce can wait until later in the week.
• So this means that my weekly planning is a little more fluid; I’m not quite sure what’s fresh at the market until I get there, which then means the weekly plan might change. We also need to phase the shopping over the week, so we’re packing only ½ week of food on the bike at a time.  This is all very doable, and enjoyable. And different.

• We’ve found a great way to store and access our bikes. While the apartment has storage in the basement, it’s up 5 stairs and down an elevator ride to get there. The electric bike, while a great mode of transportation, isn’t light, so that wasn’t my first choice.  Instead, for a fee, we’ve become community member users of the Portland State Bike Garage program. There are at least three secure bike garages within walking distance. Our ID cards get us in, and we lock the bikes up there. From there, we walk 2 blocks home, and all is well.  

• In the past 30 days, I’ve put over 250 miles on my bike. Much of this is trips to the store, allergy shots, and church. But probably even more is made up with our afternoon adventures. We’ve ridden to all corners of Portland, exploring gardens, mansions, parks. We’ve also fabricated errands we don’t really need, just to use that as an excuse to explore on bike. We’ve found our local Tru-Value which we really enjoy, found three different bike shops in three different directions, and crossed most of the brides in town, for the sole reason to see what was on the other side.  

• Last night felt like a quintessential evening. We rode to the Apple store to look into new gadgets & tools. On the way home, realized we needed refreshments to go with our taco salads for dinner. We parked our bikes in the bike garage, took off the batteries to be recharged at home, and stopped at a new Growler store 1 block away. We bought our growler, and headed home – carrying an Apple bag, two bike batteries, and a growler of beer. Our new normal. 

• With less than 800sf of space, cleaning is super-easy and fast. 

• I've scoped out the safest, prettiest, and quickest way to get to my new office. Of course, the three aren't the same. I'll err on safe and pretty.  Through woods, on trails, along the river, and through a beautiful old cemetery. Door to door, it's about 60 minutes. The bus is always an option, and given where we moved, it would be about 25 minutes.  

So far, there hasn’t been a day where we haven’t marveled at our world now.  It isn’t perfect, but all of the things we’ve traded seem like good trades so far.  Car for bike. Garden for time.  Inside house space for cleaning time and coziness. Suburban for urban.  Windy roads for sidewalks. Car for bike and bus. 

I'm not suggesting this is the best thing for everyone, or even for us for all times.  It is definitely a good move for us for now.  The most interesting thing for me is that there were so many people who seemed envious of our choice, and action. Many seemed to have made the same choice, but were unable to actually execute.  I'm grateful we were in a position to contemplate a change, and to pull it off. Besides, none of this is permanent. If something doesn't work, we'll fix it.  But for now, it's working.  Well.  

Observations on our move - Stuff

I’m finishing my first month after leaving my last paying job. Two of those weeks were in Eugene, and the rest have been here at our new abode in Portland.  Things have been so disrupted these past weeks, but oddly, I’m feeling pretty settled. 

It’s interesting how I can measure my life phases by the stuff I purchase or unload.

Upsize that, please

We were in a pretty good status quo phase for years, until September 2017, when started a major upsize phase. We converted a bedroom in the back cottage to a kitchen, complete with stove, fridge, and washer & dryer. Our plan was to put it on the short term rental market.  We purchased a second set of kitchen supplies, and two more bedrooms full of beds and bedding. I enjoyed purchasing a starter kitchen set of dishes, knives, glassware. I was able to use years of house management experience to start it right. In hindsight, I’m sorry we don’t have 20+ years of house management experience when we first start out setting up our first house!  It would be so much easier and more efficient. 

We really enjoyed being short-term rental managers. With all of as-yet-unknown-but-still-imminent changes looming, we only rented it out for 3 months. It was pretty easy and we could set how much time we needed between rentals to clean everything up and make it ready again. We never rented in the more lucrative spring and summer months, but even in the winter, we probably made around $500 month. I’d do that again. 

Wait. Downsize that. 

In February we decided to relocate to Portland. We had to shut down the short term rental, and begin to divest of not only our houseful of stuff, but the extra things I’d purchased. We got rid of most of the stuff through donations. Throughout the week, we’d move stuff into the garage we wanted to get rid of, and on the weekend take loads to the donation sites. Some stuff ended in the dump, and a few things we sold. Getting rid of the things I’d just purchased for the cottage was easier than the harder inventory of our home stuff. But we needed to go through that too, because our home in Eugene was 1200 sf, not including the cottage, and the apartment is just under 800 sf.  

Relocate in shifts.

When we’d gotten rid of everything we thought we could and were left with just the essentials, we took one load to Portland while still working and living in Eugene. Comfy chairs, coffee table, occasional clothes and kitchen linens, winter coats. This actually made the move easier, because we were able to move half of the things in, get them somewhat settled, and return to a very sparse house. But that meant when we returned with the second load a week later, we didn’t have to load and unload the truck and unpack everything that first night. 

After getting everything moved and unpacked in Portland, we still wanted to get rid of things. We’d grown accustomed to the space we’d made by moving in two loads. These things went to kids and family friends. Finally, I think we’re nearing the right amount of stuff for us.  And the nice thing is that I don’t miss a single thing I don’t have.  It feels like I have more room, because there’s more empty space here, even though it’s smaller. Observation:  I wonder what our old house would have looked and felt like if we’d gone through this exercise of off-loading the lovely but unnecessary stuff we had. I kind of wish we had.