Christina Oxenberg

September 20, 2009

I?m moving again.

It seems a short while ago I dragged my possessions into this house in Sag Harbor, September 2008.

I never unpacked.

It is Sunday and I?m faced with Tuesday next, my official ?move-out? date, and I?ve got nothing lined up.

Not that I haven?t had the time, just sort of lost track of it.

I know I?m moving for sure because I?m just starting to find where things are. Yesterday I figured out how to switch the light on in the kitchen.

Unsurprisingly, there?s an abundance of available rentals. Whittling the selection are my criteria: cheap and quiet.

I visited a train carriage, up a dirt path, stuck back behind some other actual houses. I sent a text to the owner to say, no, no way Jose. He promptly strafed me with texted questions. He needed to know right now, exactly, why did I not want his home? He pressed on, urgently, repeatedly, begging for a reason.

I fell instantly in love with a perfect cottage, up wide shale steps, with sky blue trimmed welcoming French doors and a cheery capacious interior. The back garden was hemmed by a fern draped rock wall. An inky dark blue oval swimming pool twinkled center stage. It was all beyond charming. But behind a thin copse was an active lumber yard with trucks the size of trees.

Gingerly I trod through an ancient mariner?s dwelling, with low ceilings and warped, sea-sick inducing plank floors. I had to run outside to gasp air.

One house I walked in to find the realtor had the televisions blaring, alerting me to the probability we were surrounded by noise. I looked back out to the street. Ah, a bus route.

A lady moving to Florida was ?desperate? to off load her creepy trailer. The agent described it as ?Adirondacks?, which turned out to mean fusty and better suited to a goblin.

Jane, with the East Hampton townhouse, arranged for her friend Mike to show me her home. But when I went to get the key he said he?d forgotten it- it was in his other car.

?What are you looking for?? Mike posed.

?I need something by Tuesday.? I said.

?I have a pool house you can rent. It?s just me, and my dog, and 60 acres.?

Yucko!  But thanks anyway.

I settled for a Victorian house up a hill, down the street, a few blocks from where I am.

Home at last. Again.