Ladies and gentlemen, enter Helen Reddy (imagine a Vanna White hand gesture accompanied by billowy velvet fabric folding into itself like a cathedral’s accordion).
“Yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I’ve gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman”
“And when one of us is gone
And one of us is left to carry on
Then remembering will have to do
Our memories alone will get us through
Think about the days of me and you
You and me against the world”
On the kitchen counter of my childhood home, her greatest hits cassette tape spun and spun on the black AM/FM radio When side one ended with a physical click, as noticeable as the tick, tick, tick of the transition of the baseboard to heating, it signified a need for it to be turned. In the case of the red-headed Reddy, the trigger didn’t go unnoticed, as her voice spilling into the air was part of our home’s pulse.
Three decades later, it’s first in the vinyl record line. First in line? Let me brief you since you don’t know Dave’s sophisticated system. It all started with a spreadsheet. Boxes riddled with genres and decades where he tweaked and twiddled like a mad scientist with his beakers. Until the perfect formula was formed.
You pull from the right side of the right cubby hole and replace it on the left side of the bottom left. After ten or so are pulled and replaced, you pull from the right side of the top left to backfill the emptier top right. You will never see two decades in a row or two of the same genre. As I said, sophisticated.
He’s as diligent with our Vanguard stocks, ya know, spreadsheet.
So we’re here at the cabin with a sand-falling-through-the-hourglass feeling of running out of time. I feel okay with the reality that this place will change hands, or rather our hands will hand keys, changing from the Pacific Ocean lapping our coastline to the Atlantic. Out of all the things I’ve thought about this move, an entirely different ocean feels like it’s hitting my territorial nerve, like sure, I’ll move across the country, but a whole new ocean? No thanks, I’m out.
Alright, alright. So we humans just put lines on the water because we like to define and control everything, It’s actually just one huge body of water which means I’m over my issue with the ocean.
I had a superb day. While picking up my iced Americano at Starbucks, I asked the barista about the red heart stickers on my lid. “We put them on randomly.” Smiling at my cup with the five others next to it, without stickers, seemed to say, “You’re rocking it, woman, keep going.”
Two things I rocked were two equally challenging sessions about my move to Georgia. As if on repeat, both clients felt abandoned by the change in our dynamic, one in particular said, “People always leave. Just when I’m getting attached. I’m used to it.”
The change in this person’s mannerisms from a relaxed jaw and gentle eyes flipped like a switch. The muscle in their jaw quivered with a laser pointer stare, “I don’t do virtual. That’s it, then.”
It felt like a slamming door, but instead of walking away, I slid down the door’s edge and kept talking, “So you’ve attached, and I am too. I don’t want to lose what we have, and we don’t have to. Yes, virtual will be a compromise, but I’m not going anywhere.” By the end, I received and reciprocated one of the biggest hugs I’ve gotten from them. So we will see.
But one thing is certain, I am not leaving or abandoning anybody. Those wounds were already there for my clients, and just because an aftershock happens we won’t let that define our relationship.
We have windows!
Installed in the house. The pool guy gave me an estimate for “all the bells and whistles” and will meet us at our property in two weeks. It felt good, especially when he’s been as unhelpful as an auctioneer shouting directions to Helen Keller in a corn maze.
Like what I did there?
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 