Identity Crisis

Yikes! I’m a Mainer!

It was just a matter of practicality. The question was: Did I need a U.S. address in order to continue functioning as a U.S. citizen?

For the most part, I could get by without one. But when I was asked if I intended to vote in the future, my answer was a resounding ‘Yes!’ – and for this I do need an official place of residence. I may be completely exasperated, disenchanted, even furious with the politics in this country and the way things are going, but I’m too opinionated and stubborn to let my voice go unheard.

The interesting thing is that now my voice will be part of the Maine demographic, and not lost in the sea of Democrats voting in NJ. 

The other tipping point was that my NJ driver’s license was due to expire early next year, and without a NJ address, I would not be able to renew it. So off I went this week to the BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) with the necessary documents to get my Maine license.

And this, my friends, is what makes living in Maine worthwhile. The entire process took less than 10 minutes. No waiting in lines. A brief, simple form to fill out. A super friendly clerk to explain everything. Even a fairly decent photo! Does it get any better than that?

And in other car-related news, I sold my Honda this week! My intention was to sell it, but not turn it over until just before I leave for Vienna. It’s the one – and only – thing Portland has in common with LA: you need a car. So I went back to Craig’s List to post my ad.

Bye-bye sweet baby Honda

Did you know that, unlike NY or NJ, where CL has several regional divisions, the only one for the city of Portland is the one in Oregon? The entire state of Maine is its own region, and there are no smaller ones!

Anyway, the good Karma was still floating around out there, and after several other inquiries, a very nice couple (actual hunters!) from Auburn (about 45 minutes north) responded to my listing, and really loved the car. After a brief visual inspection, a peek under the hood and a 20-minute road test, we struck a deal. And since they really didn’t want to wait until January to take the car, they paid a price that covers the cost for me to rent a car until I leave. Sweet!

Hello chintzy Chevy

Just hope my rental (an uh-uh-ugly) Chevy HHR rides well in the snow, which has just begun to blow down. Great night for my hearty beef stew,  now simmering on the stove. Yummm!

The Maine Thing

Life in the Pine Tree State

One month down, one more to go. This is the longest I have lived anywhere besides Teaneck since moving there from Queens in 1981. So, what is Portland like, and how do I like living here?  A few impressions:

1. The people are way too nice.

And I don’t mean in a sugary, superficial way. They’re just really friendly, and courteous to a fault – especially at intersections. It’s refreshing for a girl who was New York born-and-bred.

2. The people are way too hearty.

They stereotypically like rugged outdoor sports, chopping wood and sailing the open sea. And I know I’ve come to hate the cold much more as I’ve gotten older, but really … shorts in below-freezing weather? What are these Mainers made of?

3. The people are relatively few in number.

The city’s population is 64,000, with the greater Portland area coming in at 230,000. This may account in large part for #1 above, but it is striking to me how sparsely populated this area is compared to where I’ve lived before. Even shopping in downtown Freeport on Black Friday was a casual and uncrowded experience with no flared tempers or aggressive bargain hunters. Snap!

 4. The city is not too big, not too small, but just right.

It’s a perfect Goldilocks setting. Nothing is more than a few minutes away in downtown, or maybe at most a 10-minute drive on the highway. Its pace is slower than the big city, yet it has a vibrant and eclectic cultural scene with concerts, museums and restaurants to suit every taste. I could work for the bureau of tourism, except …

5. It’s too damn cold!

Not that that’s a surprise, of course, but it’s a bone-chilling, windy and sometimes damp cold that penetrates deeply and takes some doing to undo. If I lived here permanently, I would have to buy a whole new wardrobe – for both indoors and out – just to survive. As it is, I did buy a new long-ish down parka with furry hood that promises to protect in 0° to 20°F. And it does! Good thing too, because …

6. Portland is further north than NYC

And, as it turns out, Vienna is further north still! OW! While NYC is at 40°N latitude, Portland is at 43°. Vienna sits at a whopping 48°! I did know, honestly I did, that I wasn’t moving there for the climate, but this might present a bit of a challenge. Especially when I have to start hearing weather reports in Celsius, where freezing (32°F) is called 0°, and this morning’s temperature in Portland would be equivalent to a shocking -15°!

7. I like Pete’s Place

My brother has a really cool two-storey loft apartment with eye-appealing angles and surfaces, including a spiral staircase. It’s both cozy and spacious at the same time, and because we are such agreeable people  ‘-)  we’ve been having no trouble living together this past month. (Can’t say what he’ll be thinking after another month, though!) I’ve visited him often over the 25+ years that he’s lived in Maine, but this is the first time that I’ve actually had to learn the geography and get myself around, and I’ve quite enjoyed it.

All in all, the Portland experience has been just great, and a perfect interlude on my journey to Vienna. I never really expected I’d be idle for these two months, but it is surprising how many, many tasks and details I still must attend to before I leave. Fortunately, my list-making skills were well honed before leaving Teaneck, and they are definitely serving me well these days.

And while thankfully it’s a far, far cry from homelessness, there is a strange sense of not really having a home. I no longer have an address in New Jersey, my stay here in Portland is temporary, and my residence in Vienna is still only a future destination. It gives me the sense of being in a canoe, paddling my way down a river and navigating the rapids – knowing that there’s a waterfall to traverse and calmer waters  ahead, but they’re still out of reach.

Pet Prep

Passport to Adventure

One of the questions most frequently asked of me (after “Why Vienna?”) was:  “What are you going to do with Scout?”

My response was an automatic, “Are you kidding? She’s coming with me, of course!”

Then it was, “Does she have to be quarantined?” And the answer was, "No."

Scout's documents are inside
her personal pet passport folder

But there are some particular hoops that we both have to jump through in order to satisfy the authorities that she is worthy of being admitted into Austria. It has to do primarily with the level of a country’s control of rabies, and since Austria and the U.S. are on the same ‘tier’ as established by international treaty, all we needed, mostly, was vaccination certification.

In addition, however, it seems that it is also now international law that all domestic animals must have an electronic ID chip inserted under their skin in order to help the authorities locate lost pets and reunite them with their rightful owners. Scout had had one put in by the shelter from which I adopted her, but it does not operate on the same frequency as those in Europe, so we had to get her another one, and now she is the dog with two chips on her shoulder! (Might explain some of her behavior, heh heh!)

The next, and penultimate, step was to get all the paperwork certified by the USDA, and for that I had to drive up to the state headquarters in Maine’s capital, Augusta.

Actually, more like the rural outskirts of Augusta, and not quite as august as the name might imply. After forty-five minutes on the turnpike, I exited and drove along country roads where I found what you might call an eclectic series of enterprises – everything from auto and tractor repair shops to antique barns to fundamentalist churches to a lace and leather lingerie boutique (yes, practically across the road!) and a smelt farm – each spaced far enough apart to drive a herd of cattle through.

In fact, images of cows were everywhere inside the USDA building, where the chief state veterinarian, who would be charged with certifying Scout’s paperwork, was also processing a shipment of thousands of beef and dairy livestock to, of all places, Turkey. Good to know where your government tax dollars are going, eh?

And what, I hear you ask, is the final step? A few days before I fly to Vienna, I must return to the veterinarian who vaccinated and chipped Scout for a final checkup and document certifying that she is healthy and fit to travel.

Well, now that I think of it, there is one more final step: getting Scout into her travel crate. I’ve already begun trying to acclimate her to her temporary 'home in the sky', but I’m hoping that a calming dose of (vet-recommended) Benadryl will go a long way towards accomplishing this task. Once that’s done, I’ll take a calming dose of something too!

Scout gets cozy in her crate before the hood goes on

My Life in Nine Boxes

The art of packing triage

It started many months ago, long before I even put my house on the market. Lying in bed, driving the car, watching TV, drinking my morning coffee. The flood of thoughts about what I needed to take with me to my new home in Vienna was constant – and constantly growing – in my brain! I created categories, then made lists, long lists. Then I made lists of those lists. It was quite the obsession.

It’s not the same as when you move, for example, from one house to another. If you can’t decide what goes and what doesn’t, you simply have the movers pack everything, and deal with it at some unspecified time in the future. After all, isn’t that what attics and basements are for?

Not so when you move abroad. This kind of packing requires the art of triage: What can’t I live without? What will be useful? What would be convenient or comfortable to have? What can I just get when I’m there? What do I want to keep but don’t need right away (i.e. storage)? What goes to the trash bin?

I was scrupulous at first, thinking that the size and weight of anything I shipped would add to the cost. “Do I really, really, need this?” was the measure by which my decisions were made.

I worked hard to lighten my load by uploading to my laptop all my music CDs and hundreds of photos. In cumulative hours, this alone consumed over a week!

Then in my shipping research I learned that there was a minimum level – sometimes cubic feet, sometimes pounds – below which all freight cost the same. What a reprieve! Now I could take on my move anything I wanted, as long as it did not exceed that minimum.

So when all the clothing, personal articles, cookware (non-metric!), tools, books, art, photos, decorations, professional files and office supplies were assembled, my life added up to nine boxes. And this is what it looked like:

What I'm taking to Vienna

And then, a couple of days before the house closing, a truck pulled up to my driveway, and a very nice, hefty fellow came and loaded my nine boxes onto his truck. I confess feeling a little ambushed by the lump that rose in my throat as I watched my most important worldly possessions disappear down the street, but the driver had reassured me that everything would be OK.

And it was. My boxes arrived at the loading dock and got shrink-wrapped onto a pallet, ready for loading into a container that they will ‘share’ with other shippers’ pallets. My boxes have not yet sailed, though, because of the pre-holiday crush at the shipyard, and some disparity between the company’s estimate and the final invoice. But I’ve been assured everything will make it there on time and the pricing discrepancy will be resolved. I’m counting (again) on Karma to see me through.

Meanwhile, the process of packing triage is not over. My next challenge is to make sure that, when I fly to Vienna, my two checked bags don’t exceed 50 pounds apiece. I’m already going to pay a penalty for having more than the one piece allowed, but hey, gimme a break. This ain’t no vacation – I’m moving. And they also tell me my carry-on can’t exceed 18 pounds. Good luck with that! So I’m thinking … maybe I should smuggle some of the heavier items in Scout’s crate, since I only pay one straight fee for her, and there’s no weight limit!  H-m-m-m-m-m-m …….

Good Karma

What goes around comes around

One of the things that helped me as I parted company with many of my most significant possessions was the satisfaction that came from knowing that they were going to good people, and good homes.

Wasn’t it risky to advertise on Craig’s List and let perfect strangers into my home while I was alone, as many have asked? Maybe. Maybe I was naïve, or too trusting. But I like to think it was good Karma to make the effort of giving my belongings a new and happy life, just as I was hoping to do for myself.

A few of my favorite encounters:

- Clearly the most wrenching decision was to let go of my piano, so laden with symbolism (a gift from my parents) and emotion (the musical love of my life). And despite several inquiries from prospective buyers, it went almost immediately to a British gentleman who instantly fell in love with the instrument. He could not stop admiring it and, after a brief discussion on price, insisted on coming over again the next day with two copies of a very proper purchase agreement to sign, and a $100 deposit! Three days later when his piano movers came, he mentioned that his daughter founded and runs a major nonprofit musical foundation (Music Unites), and so I knew even more profoundly that my piano was going to the right place.

- When I was clearing out my parents’ apartment after my father died, I sold their beautiful teak dining room breakfront to a lovely young couple of women. They were sweet and sensitive, and incredibly strong, packing the heavy piece, as well as the full bedroom set, by themselves onto their pickup truck. Now it was time for the matching teak table and chairs to go, but I was having trouble getting buyers. Finally a woman responded to my umpteenth ad and said she could come the next day to pick up the set – sight unseen except for the photo. And who pulls up to my driveway at the appointed hour? The same couple who had bought the breakfront a year and a half earlier. Not only was I so pleased to sell it to them, in particular, but also now the dining set would be reunited. And, a further coincidence: one of the women was from Nova Scotia originally, and upon seeing Scout cried, “A Duck Toller!” (My friends will know that, while Scout is probably just a mutt, she does in fact most resemble a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.) Who, but this buyer, would know such a thing?

- It was painful to sell my Ethan Allen bedroom furniture, which I loved and had bought only a few years ago. But one charming young woman was so keen on the desk (she never even negotiated the price!), that despite getting her car totaled in an accident on the way to pick it up, she came in a pickup with her brother and his friend that same day. My bedroom door and moldings had to be removed to fit the desk through, and the path down my twisting stairway threatened several times to permanently lodge the piece, but they pursued the job tirelessly until they strapped it on to their truck and drove away. That same evening, my daughter’s boyfriend helped me put back the door and moldings (more fun, he said, than repairing tanks in the Israeli army!). I spackled and painted the next morning, and the doorway was good as new.

There are many more stories I could tell, but what I couldn’t sell, I gave away: 

- books to the library that was collecting them for inmates at the local prison

- my crutches and father’s walker to the volunteer ambulance squad

- six comforters to Shelter our Sisters (for victims of domestic violence)

- housewares and books to the Disabled Veterans of America

- more books to the library at the Classic Residence assisted living facility where my parents last lived

- clothing and ‘giftable’ knick knacks to a local thrift shop

- a sofa, chair and tons of cookware to a single teen mom who just moved into an apartment without a single possession.

Someday my children (are you reading this?) will thank me for not leaving them with so much to get rid of after I’m gone, but it was also a necessary and cathartic exercise for me, here and now. Besides,

“One should perform karma …  without expecting the benefits because sooner or later one shall definitely get the fruits.”

- Rigveda (one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism)

We have lift off!

The house is no longer mine, but my future is.

If not looking back means you are headed in the right direction, then I am.

I can’t say that it wasn’t difficult to leave Teaneck after nearly 30 years. But I have photos, movies and my children to help me recall and re-experience the good family times I had there.

And I certainly can’t say it wasn’t difficult – physically and mentally – to make decisions on the disposition of every single item in the house, from art and other collectibles to everyday housewares, from books and music to work-related items, down to the last paper clip. Not to mention mementos from the lives of each family member, and all the furniture!

But decide I did. Sometimes emotionally, sometimes ruthlessly. Until the entire house was vacant and the business affairs – mostly unpleasant (perhaps more on that later) – were settled.

A quick but essential word here, first, about my brother, Peter. He will blush and dismiss my comment  with “C’mon, it was nothing.” Yet it was anything but that. His emotional support, physical prowess, and organizational tactics were nothing short of spectacular, and I would not have made it through the final week without him. I appreciate every day how special he is, the close relationship we have, and my good fortune to have him as my brother.

And so, on Thursday, November 4^th, the first stage of the journey to my new life began. It’s been said that when it rains on a couple’s wedding day, it means good luck. (I think: bad hair day for the bride, and poor guests who have to travel in it.) So what to make of the weather on the day I left? It poured non-stop, and the drive to my brother’s house was difficult because the wind also blew hard, and at night there were several foggy patches in New Hampshire and Maine. But we made it, and my dog Scout, bless her furry little heart, was a champion traveler. She slept most of the way, and ‘performed’ fairly promptly at the rest stops.

What struck me then, and still now, is the magic power of adrenalin. I can’t imagine what else could have kept us going through such a long and arduous day, especially at our age! And at the end, we still had enough energy to unload the rented van and my car and set up ‘my bedroom’ in Peter’s loft apartment (definitely more on that later).

So if it’s true what they say about the rain, I’ve had a very auspicious beginning. Now comes the task of de-stressing, dealing with some remaining details of my past and future lives, and cramming German like crazy. All while trying not to freeze my buns off as the notorious New England winter grabs hold. 

I am ready.

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Scout’s new perch at my brother’s place, where the builder thoughtfully arranged windows to the street at her eye level   >>