May 03, 2006

So you want to know how to move to a new apartment, eh?

Start with some empty cardboard boxes. Two dozen will do. Place them on your bed, one at the time, and fill them with your crumpled underwear, books, flowers, sex toys, love letters, orange lampshades, and all the warm thrills of summer nights. These are the material, tangible belongings that made your winter months bearable.

Next, stack the full boxes near the door like some sort of precious cargo. Wait patiently for your lover to walk through that door. He’ll first lift you in his arms, and you’ll giggle as you press your lips against his. And then, overcome by tenderness he’ll pick up every single one of your boxes in his arms as well and carry them out into the waiting van.

In just a few hours the boxes will be gone, the furniture will be dismantled, and the whole house will suddenly seem so much larger and emptier than before. You’ll walk for the last time through the dusty rooms that witnessed so much pleasure, pain, and penetration. A quiet sigh will lift from your chest and gently touch the fragments of dust left on the window still.

And the new place, when you finally get there, will seem even vaster and fuller of light! “So much potential,” you say, before rushing to unload the van. And later, with all those cardboard boxes crowded in the room, get naked with your lover and dance even though your arms ache and your brain craves sleep. Your new neighbours will bang on the adjoining wall in gratitude.