The weight of this world is enough

I appreciate that our front porch is being constructed with skill and solidity and mindfulness of building codes, but the punctual arrival of the contractors at what we have come to term the crack of legality is really destroying my ability to sleep in any more substantive fashion than a couple of wolf-hours and a total failure to doze through the use of wall-vibrating tools. I am trying to comfort myself with the fact that the steps have almost been rebuilt to the point of railings, although the front door itself is still technically nailed shut. Thanksgiving was good but intense: it seemed to come up faster than usual and leave a sort of whiplash. I finally managed to review one of the movies I had stared at in the evenings, which took what felt like the mental effort of the entire weekend, and otherwise I am so tired that I feel barely here.

I am sure we will discover all sorts of idiosyncracies about this apartment as we settle into it and especially after the upstairs people move in, but right now I am marveling at how many of its features cast an even grimmer light on the shortcomings of our previous address. The ability to do laundry in our own home rather than having to take it elsewhere. (Eight years I couldn't do laundry on site!) The ability to set the thermostat to a normal temperature for late fall rather than always having to blast the heat because it bleeds as fast out the windows. (The heating bills this winter will no doubt be agonizing, but at least not wasteful.) We don't have dust and drafts constantly leaking under unsealed doors from the landing of a shared stairwell and I like to think that even if our upstairs neighbors turn out to be stoners, they might not give me asthma attacks on the regular because our apartments are actually separated by more than a gentlemen's agreement. The fan in the bathroom works. It feels dangerous to become fond of this apartment: we don't own it; it's not like we moved into the last one imagining that it would damage my health. But we are slowly reducing the number of boxes and I am trying to convince myself it is a place to live, not just a place to stay, because it feels like a very long time since that has been true. I may always miss the view from our back deck, but I still miss the dogwood outside my window in New Haven, too. I really do not believe that housing should be so fraught and awful that I have become gun-shy about inhabiting a space.

We took advantage of the commencement of the consumer season to purchase a small cat tree, which now sits to one side of the couch; I have seen both cats on it at different times, in Hestia's case particularly attentive to the prospect of birds in the street. I missed them so much when they were not always wandering through the same rooms, climbing imperiously into my lap, delicately scratching for attention. Our little predators. It is very important to have them underfoot.