In 1969, I moved a total of 39 times. I was exact; some moves were from one “squat” or couch to another. One was across a national border. The list is buried somewhere in my papers. Yes, I hung on to it. And now I’m glad I did because after all these years, I am interested in what it will tell me about the sequence of events that year. After all I don’t have a photographic memory, but I do have one that responds well to prompts.
Why did I move all that many times? I was restless, looking for things externally that I needed to find internally, and I also moved a few times for employment. Romantic breakups and entanglements were responsible for at least three of those moves.
I had a hectic time of it, and it was the last full year I spent on the “road” – I was tiring of the impermanent lifestyle – although the 39 moves doen’t seem to indicate that.
At the end of that year I was back in Boston’s Beacon Hill, owned by a nasty grey cat ( Clancy J Bumps, AKA the Grey Menace. He did not like to miss meals or travel. So he actually helped settle me into one place.
It’s funny how small things, like a cat, can have big implications. I finally had someone who totally depended on me, and it had a big effect on my life.
Artwork by Louis N. Carreras, copyright
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Yes, a cat does keep wandering down! Even leaving the house for a day or two becomes one of those “Who do I know who can take care of the cat while I’m gone?” problems. Then, among your friends, who has cats so understands how they respond to their absentee human and who would be bad at tending to a cat’s needs? Not everyone can be counted on to not upset the cat!
You are right in all the particulars, and in Clancy’s case he would attack someone he did not like…OK he’d also attack someone he did like, too.
That goes further. After a stroke, you do a lot of sitting around, where probably you’re better getting off your ass and doing things, Use it or lose it. But the pesky cats still wanted feeding… So in that way, they helped me recover.
Yes, they do it all for our benefit…
A-ha!!! “looking for things externally that I needed to find internally”
You know youthful evasion of responsibility for your own life. I was very good at it.
I sometimes wonder NOW if we know what our own life is. It seems to be a moving point. 🙂 I took the first thing that came along that I liked and that paid.
I think your life was a bit more stable than mine was though. And it seems to me that maybe, in the language of the time that you “had your act together,” a lot more than I did.
I had to, Lou. I hit my misspent youth at 40. We have to do all the stages sooner or later, mine had to be condensed and accelerated a bit because a responsible adult (me) had a house payment and five dogs.
Go ahead, Martha…blame it on the dogs!
Oh the stories I could tell (but won’t) 🤣