Echoes Off These Walls

Today is furniture moving day.

I have to distinguish it like that because each phase of this move is almost its own moving day. Actual closing isn't until Thursday, which is good since there's still a lot of 'stuff' we need to deal with that I have strategically left out of the picture.

But the house is sure empty enough. Empty enough to echo.

I don't like it when a room echoes. All the cozy is gone if there's an echo. All that made it the room it was, whatever its function was. As in our family room. Ken and I had our last night on the couch watching TV together last night. And now, the room echoes.

I'm sentimental enough to have been saying thank you to each room as I've worked in it. Remembering out loud the living that happened in it, and thanking it for how it enriched my life. Room by room, I've been saying good bye and thanking the house for being our home these 36 years.

Then again, the echoes might be something else. As I'm going into each room and I hear the echo of my feet on the floor, or my voice if I speak, I am wondering if I might not be hearing the house speak back to me.

Maybe the echoes are the Spirit bringing to mind memories and speaking them back to me. Reminding me of all that grew here, all that was celebrated here, all that was mourned here, all that was lived here.

I am so grateful.
Thirty-six years is a long time to call a house home.
This has been a good home.

I am so grateful.
The phases of our move are not done.
We are held in suspension for a little while until the next piece comes into play.
There'll be cottage time, then Thailand time, then cottage time again.
Other homes.

So, in the end, the echoes off these walls send me on my way with gentle boldness.