Completely in the Dark

It feels good to be here again.

So, where—exactly—is “here”?

It’s an open question the past three weeks finally answered as I moved into a new apartment for the first time in three years. That might seem long to you, but it’s short for someone who’s only moved nearly every decade of his life.

And “here”—that’s always been with paper, pen in hand, or at a typewriter or word processor, with time devoted to writing and thinking real thoughty-thoughts. It’s a glorious mental space I haven’t enjoyed in a while.

Even the story of this year’s move, on July 27, 2019 (actually ending with turning in the old keys on July 30), circles back around to where I last left off in this blog’s ongoing story: early in 1993, just after my late fall 1992 move to St. Paul, to a mansion on Summit Avenue.

My original 1993 journal was buried in a box with other memorabilia, making it the prospect of an unpleasant archaeological dig. And finding photos from the time to accompany the post added another layer of complexity. It was too much. Just moving one mountain—the housing stuff—was enough.

I recently took photos of the old apartment from February 1993 (pictured above right), after I’d bailed out of the mansion and piled everything into my Mitsubishi pickup to drive a mere half dozen blocks away—holing up until I saw my life’s new direction. My friends were exasperated, no doubt my family was, but my brother Brian came through and helped take photos of the old mansion bedroom so I could make the claim I’d left it as I’d found it. I recall he, along with my friend Theron Hollingsworth, joined us for a late breakfast in St. Paul’s Merriam Park on the big move day.

Still, transitions are difficult. I always forget that.

There are two kinds: survival transitions and aspirational ones. The original move to St. Paul, in November 1992, was definitely aspirational. I’d planned it for months and quit my job so that I could focus on the freelance business I’d hoped to grow there. When the mansion plan failed, up popped Plan B—pure survival mode. The one-bedroom apartment I found was on the second floor (my unit was toward the back, near the fire escape, which at the time kind of freaked me out).

“I paid some bills today,” the journal reports on Monday, Feb. 1, 1993, “and nearly broke down on the phone to [best buddy Terry] Hollingsworth. I’ve felt absolutely aimless the past 3 mos. It’s been more unsettling than I would’ve liked—or imagined. All today I felt trapped in my new place—like I had to wall myself in. I’m dreaming of a new place to move to after June 30—when I have to give notice of leaving here. I realize things could change, but I don’t feel rooted here on Cathedral Hill, especially with all that happened with the [mansion landlords].”

Even back then I knew physical movement was a remedy for uncertainty. “I got out today,” the journal states, “…but I was sort of in a fog.” For early February, temperatures were nearly 40 above zero, “beautiful…but I couldn’t see what I was doing in the world—I was wandering, dozing, observing and FEARING. I’m going to have to PICK MYSELF UP—but I felt so abandoned this morning.” Even T.H. tried to cheer me up “but I was on that Track.”

I’ve had positive transitions (St. Paul took a lot of re-adjustment along the way, but I’ll probably have more thoughts about that in the days ahead here in Minneapolis) and negative ones (where you have to move hastily and you realize your entire well-being relies on improved conditions). That January-February 1993 move from the Summit mansion to apartment #2 on Western Avenue at the intersection of Selby Avenue in St. Paul was a negative one: pure survival. I had to negotiate with the landlord on a short-term lease (he wanted one year; I wanted the flexibility of six months because I’d just come off a bad situation).

That bad situation got worse through the spring when I was sued for breaking the lease by the mansion landlords. My fellow roommates banded together in a determination to fight the fuckers so we could get on with our lives—the kind of bold things 20- or 30-year-olds do, but it’s seriously exhausting at 59.

Which is to say this is where 1993 collides with 2019 in a big way.

This summer’s move was entirely aspirational. I’d been thinking about it over the past three years, like Andy Dufresne secretly chipping away at his wall in Shawshank Penitentiary. My previous home, a cooperative condo on Summit Hill and mortgaged in 2006 (pictured at left during the 2016 move out), was the last aspirational dream that faded quickly when my parents died in 2008. The subsequent decade brought me to where I am now. But that’s a story for later.

So, I’ll just return to where we began.

It feels soooooooo good to be here again: Wrestling with words on a page, wondering about what it all means, sensing connections to the past, present, and future—as well as all the old hopes, fears, aspirations and transitions. It’s a place I definitely recognize.

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

~ by completelyinthedark on August 30, 2019.

Posted in 2019, St. Paul, Writing
Tags: Andy Dufresne, aspiration, Brian, Cathedral Hill, Merriam Park, Mitsubishi pickup, Selby Avenue, Shawshank, Summit Hill, Summit mansion, Theron Hollingsworth, Western Avenue