Getting Ready to Move
First you get disgruntled with the place youıre in,
despite having countless times in the last ten years
sworn undying love for it.
The constant postponing of repairs
now makes the house look untrustworthy,
well worth slipping away from.
The glorious garden is both water-hungry
and labour intensive.
Then you let your eye wander over the property ads,
and round the suburbs where your errands take you.
The old rule was: If itıs desirable, itıs unaffordable.
The new rule is: How do we know what we can afford
till we sell what weıre in?
The next factor is un-quantifiable:
How could we sell up here without somewhere
to move into where we truly expect to settle?
Limbo is where youıd be for who knows how long,
and at what expense?
Downsizing used to be the dream: simplify,
simplify - somewhere tiny and out of the way;
life without a mortgage, credit cards, debt.
But that would require being able to live with
merely a hundred books, instead of the ten thousand
two addicts accumulate over half a lifetime
and canıt bear to part with.
The house when it materializes will be not far from work,
roomy, durable, near public transport, open space.
The roof will never leak, nor drains block, nor...
I could go on. The fact is
wherever I live rain finds its way in,
whether down the chimney, between glass and window-frames,
via dubious roof-tiling or dud metal sheets,
then down bookshelves,
through wardrobes stuffed with garments,
over carpeted floors.
My student-days copy of Yeats is crinkled with Auckland rainwater.
In Warrandyte (Vic.) water trickled into a piano.
Manyıs the time, while the downpour poured down,
I trod the roof lifting leaf litter from the down-pipes.
Cloudbursts seemed to know where to find me:
in Clifton Hill, with its upstairs view
parkland, Melbourne skyscrapers and a big sky,
while the flood flowed down the tv and a hundred CDs,
a ceiling came down. Reason to move.
[to be continued, beware...]
Max Richards
North Balwyn, Vic. now
Doncaster, Vic. soon
6am, Wed 19 October 2005
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