We moved into our new home on Thursday. In the two days since we’ve been here, we have spent the majority of our time unpacking books. Books on shelves mean we are settling in. We have a little way to go still, but in essence, our move is complete. The cats, who endured their six weeks of indoor living with patience and grace, have begun to get acquainted with their new territory.
Shortly after we moved north to Scotland I wrote a piece for a magazine enumerating the various house moves I have made during my life. From memory, there have been more than twenty in total, a tally that still feels vertiginous to me, a catalogue of displacement and disruption. This particular move has been easier in some ways – we are, in a sense, still in the same place, still on familiar ground – but in others it has seemed all-consuming, exhausting, seminal.
I am sitting in my new office, looking out at the Firth of Clyde. It is a gentle, pale blue evening. I am so glad to be home.
