Vagabound

Tonight is my last official night as a Capitol Hill resident. The movers come tomorrow at 2:00 to scatter my few belongings across three households. Earlier this evening my friend Mark came over, and after a long day of packing while watching intermittent snow and driving rain I was happy to get out of the house during a sun break and walk around my 'hood with an old friend. We ended up where I usually end up on Broadway, at Pho Cyclo. Here I am with a sudden snowstorm behind me:

Mark satisfied after a big bowl of pho:

Once the snow let up we made a break for it. Here, the wide blue sky we'd been walking under collided with a snowy, rainy sky near my apartment:


It's cheesy but I was nostalgic thinking this was the last time I'd walk around as a local. I doubt that wherever life takes me it will bring me back to this neighborhood. I'm too damn old here, and I'd rather be young somewhere else. Still, I have enjoyed myself. Between a fantastic apartment and a central location surrounded by worthy establishments, I've had a pretty memorable year and a half.

I wasn't really sad until this evening when friends came to take the big split-leaf philodendron that has grown from a two-leaf whippersnapper into a massive man-eater in its sun-drenched spot above a steam heater.

The corner was so empty without it there, and it sank in - I'm leaving this place! I know this feeling won't last much beyond Thursday at 5:00 when I officially have to hand over the keys, and then it'll just be another in a long line of wonderful places I have lived (I really do get lucky with housing). But tonight I plan on being a nostalgic sap and blubber about my boxes before curling up in my bed - the last time I'll be able to say I'm sleeping in MY bed for who knows how long (the luxuries of moving into a furnished house mean a better bed awaits me).

Owning an apartment's worth of furnishings has been an experiment this last year and a half, and even as I fought against it I knew the vagabond instinct would reclaim me. Still, I lasted longer than I thought I would... I lived here almost a year longer than anywhere else during the previous six years. That's progress, right?