As Jeremy would say, it’s not the physical act of moving into a place with other people that’s the problem; it’s the mind-trip of doing so. It was a good thing we didn’t see it coming, otherwise we would have had too much time to take that mind-trip. To explain, we were supposed to take up residence in this church building on Thursday, November first, but the contract for deed/lease had been signed and we were anxious to get in and paint, to make it our home before ever taking up residence. Mainly, we wanted to get the kids’ rooms situated so that they didn’t feel uprooted in this whole process. But on Friday afternoon, as I sat at work, I got a text from Ryan asking if we’d like to split the cost of a U-Haul truck and that maybe we could move the next day.
We agreed to bring our families together for a night of pizza and painting and general readying of the new place now that we’d received a key. Ryan and Erin brought their dining room table—now our dining room table, and as we stood around it, eating a sort of Passover if you will, because we didn’t have any chairs, Erin began to pace. “Why don’t we friggin’ move in tomorrow? I mean, we’re bringing all the mattresses over tomorrow. Where’re we supposed to sleep? Both our families have hardwood floors!”
And so it began, this crazy adventure that we’re taking, this adventure that nobody seems to understand, and that I’m not even sure we do. And the highlights are these: Jeremy and Ryan are already deeply saddened that Alex and his array of home-brewed beers are not coming, and that Erin and I would have really benefitted from a voice of reason, Carla, in choosing these crazy paint colors for the girls’ room. Two of the three cats have been acquainted and greeted each other with decided unfriendliness. We still have hope though, for their greeting did not end with any scratched-out eyeballs. Our youngest, in an insightful moment put together the idea that she now has “two mommies,” and we begged her, whatever she does, please don’t also tell her preschool teachers that she has “two daddies” too. We just don’t feel like explaining that one yet, especially since (entirely coincidental, trust us!) we all four have tattooed wedding bands. Ryan met a neighbor and as he tried to make friendly small talk, the neighbor said, “So what’ve you got, like 4 or 5 families moving in?”
Apparently, rumor of a cult moving into the neighborhood has also surfaced, but with Ryan and Erin’s ancient Toyota station wagon with a gazillion bumper stickers like, “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth,” “Coexist,” and “If you can’t play nice, play roller derby,” we're hoping the rumors of a cult will be dispelled fairly quickly. But in trade for what? For the idea that we are a bunch of dirty hippies living in a church with no shower? We might as well start smudging with marijuana leaves now, and then invite the neighbors over for coffee.
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| Ryan and Erin's youngest and our youngest playing dolls on the handicap chair lift |
Speaking of trippy, there’s a trick to making moving into a commune a little less anxiety ridden: you’ve got to make your current living situation totally unbearable for moving into a commune to be a breath of fresh air. For example, our house has been emptied of furniture for weeks now. Because we had the floors refinished, it made little sense to move back in since we were so close to moving anyway. So imagine if you will, a small little house, all hardwood or laminate flooring, completely devoid of furniture or sound-absorbing rugs, and then imagine three crazy kids in it. I cannot even begin to describe how terrible that echo is. Forget a short fuse. I’ve had no fuse with my kids at all lately. Move into a building with 6,300 square foot to run in, even if you’re adding 3 more kids in the mix, it feels like a little bit of heaven. Heaven, I tell you.
There are two more things to note. One, I am now a music pastor, but if you refer to me as Pastor, I’ll never forgive you. And two, there was much conflict in me about this, it ended with my bloody nose. True story.
