There’s this quote from Anthony Bourdain that went viral last year that goes, “If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can”. When I was creating No Particular Order’s latest journal, Handle With Care, a prompted journal for any move, big or small, I thought about this a lot. I thought about how it’s not only our habit to move–whether into a college dorm or to a new city or a new apartment or your first home or back home–but how moving offers a perspective that no other experience can offer in quite the same way.
In the last five years, I have moved into three different apartments in New York, I have lived in London, and spent time in limbo at my parents’ place in Connecticut. And as much as I am exhausted, I am also enchanted. By just how much we gain in moving…
When I moved out of my last apartment, it felt like a chapter was distinctly ending. I thought I was closing the book on New York, starting a fresh page, rewriting my narrative from the beginning abroad. We talk about this a lot when we move, the closing of a chapter. As someone who loves the very tactile experience of writing in a journal, it’s a metaphor I certainly identify with. Sometimes, we really do write our last page and start over on the minted page of a freshly cracked notebook. In fact, I’ve found there’s not much that captures the tumult of moving quite like journaling through it. Writing to-do lists, writing to convince ourselves that moving is the right decision, writing because we’re lonely or excited or scared, or writing to keep track of which box has the silverware. In moving, there is no feeling too big, no detail too small. What journaling allows us to see is the way we carry ourselves through the change.
Baggage. That’s another thing we talk a lot about in moving. How cumbersome the boxes we pack are. Where everything will go and where it will fit in the new place. And then there’s the emotional baggage of moving. We recently posted on Instagram asking people where and why they moved, and over 500 people responded: for a fresh start. Because they broke up with an ex. To fulfill a lifelong dream. To start a new job. It’s true that no matter the reason, the heaviest thing we carry from place to place is ourselves. Weighed down by a life of experience and the long season ahead of new anxieties and anticipations. What are the restaurants I’ll want to try, and who will my friends be? Even moving back to New York after many months away, a city that was as familiar to me as any, I had these questions for myself.
Because as much as is gained in the chaos of moving, so much is also lost. My plywood wall for one (IYKYK). That puffer I bought on ThreadUp with the silver belt, which I’m hoping is in my parents’ basement. My neighborhood spots (dear old Madmen Espresso). But mostly, a sense of place. It’s incredibly disorienting. Time stops turning in the way we’ve always known it to. Suddenly, three weeks have gone by, and you’re still sleeping on an air mattress. And six months go by, and then one morning, the barista at your local coffee shop remembers your order. And then a year goes by, and so much has changed it’s almost hard to keep track.
Handle With Care is as much a reminder to wrap your glassware in bubble wrap as it is a reminder to treat yourself, in all of the motion, with grace. It’s something I’m trying to tell myself every day, and especially in the months since I’ve moved into my new apartment. But as the kitchen stools were delivered and the cafe on the corner has become mine, I’ve spent my mornings on the spot on the living room floor where the light comes in at midday, trying to be more present. There is so much contained within moving, but between the past and the future, all we have is ourselves, our minds, and our intentions. This I guess is a reminder as well to move with more intention. To take care of ourselves. To handle ourselves with care.
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