In

I am writing on a slope, my new leather office chair is edging into the middle of the room from the side of my desk. I don't think there is any fixing this. I've moved now and my mind has shifted its focus from how to get everything in to how to make everything work. However, a house on a slight slant is just something I'll have to live with.

Why must everything work? No reason. It can't. Impossible to do after a huge move, unless you are my friend B, who makes perfection her mission and whose home was immaculate mere days after her belongings arrived. This place in a work in progress, like everything else in my life.

The joy of here, already, is the space around me, even if it is mostly filled with boxes. The beauty of a basement is that it holds boxes out of sight. Ditto for the garage. Imagine, a garage! I never, ever imagined I would take such pleasure in such a place, but now I enjoy the smell of oil and the old tools hanging on nails, and the rakes and baby food jars filled with odd screws and nails, and the pails and shelves and tarps and everything unrecognizable to a former apartment dweller.