2 A Moving Story

 

There's No Life Like It (part 2)– A moving story

 

As a child I was terrified that my parents would announce that we were moving. They never did. Maybe it was because, at the age of six, one of my classmates moved to Canada. The teacher said she was really lucky because in Canada children didn’t start school until they were six, so she had a two year head start on them all. But was she lucky? She just disappeared into a void, there she was, gone. Then, at eight I lost my childhood friend, Richard Summers, the same way. The Summers’ family moved to Canada too. That was a little better because there was an enormous party, the adults all went to the West End to see Dave Allen in The Talk of the Town and twelve kids had one giant sleepover, topping and tailing in every bed available.

The next day I was entrusted with baby Stella’s harness as larger people dragged bags and bulky coats onto the Heathrow train. It was very cold in Canada. And then they were gone too, leaving a huge void. No more rides down the garden path on Uncle Fred’s moped. No more tricycle rides or sneaky pram rides when our mums were preoccupied with the babies. No more the familiar smell of boiling Lux soap flakes and chips and smoke and love. How does love smell? Like the Summers house in Greenford in 1965.

I guess I never really understood why people move until 14 years later. The tables had turned and this time it was me moving … to Canada. With a wedding ring on my finger and that same Richard Summers at my side. A dream that I didn’t even know I had, was coming true. I was starting another life in a whole new country. But, on my last night in England the monster-of-the-void came back to haunt me. It whispered,

‘You are leaving everything behind, your family, the life you know.  Your mum is too sick to fly,’ it reminded me. ‘You will never be able to save enough for another airplane ride. That’s it. Forever. This time the void is YOU.”

I cried all night. I’d been so caught up in my own happiness that I hadn’t looked over my shoulder to see what I was leaving behind.

Much of my former life I was happy to leave behind and start afresh. I’d made a mess of a lot of things. This was an opportunity to reinvent myself. The excitement of unknown adventures was a choice I had made. But tearing away from my mother and father, the two who had given me all the life I knew, was the cost of writing this new chapter in my life. But for me there was no void, there was a future, filled with hope and adventure.

This must have been the fire that steeled me for a life of always moving. In the twenty-two years that Richard served in the Navy we moved thirteen times. In fact, Simon, our eldest son, has never lived more than three years anywhere. At his high school graduation, we were asked to write a little sentence that they would read out whilst the graduate crossed the stage. With a giggle we penned, ‘After seven schools, you’ve finally graduated!’

That is seven opportunities to reinvent yourself. Seven different sets of social structure to fit into, or not, as you choose. Seven neighborhoods to discover the good and the bad and choose which you want to be this time. As they grew up some of the children joined the cadet movement, a countrywide organization that formed lifelong friendships no matter where we lived. For me there was always a new PTA to help with, or not, a new newspaper to write for, or not and a new church with which to connect. Wherever we’ve lived we’ve explored it to its core. We did not choose to be in any of these places, they were not exotic tourist spots. But they nurtured incredible amounts of curiosity to find their hidden treasures.

Military moves are quite a herculean effort but in true forces manner they are handled so routinely. I guess that moving our family is much easier than sending out the fleet to blockade the Bosporus and pick up refugees from the Mediterranean Sea. There is an order to everything. The serving member is posted, along with their DF&E. That is, Dependents, Furniture and Effects. At least we come before the couch! For the long distance moves we often chose to make a holiday out of our move, then you could see beyond a house full of packing boxes to the road trip ahead. The military gave us a generous number of days in which to complete the trip.  Kingston to Victoria, our very first move ever, happened six weeks after our wedding and warranted six nights in hotels. All of which we needed, because we weren’t speaking to each other from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg. I’d sort of driven on the wrong side of the road on a rainy night in Northern Ontario. And criticism is hard for either of us to take, as we found out once we started talking to each other. There were other facts this new Canadian learned that trip: I learned that, unlike England, you do not need a map to drive across Canada – there is only one road, that Ontario is really, really big, and that Victoria is on an Island!

Posting road trips were the best. We found the recipe that worked for all of us. Three hundred miles a day, pack the car first then bundle in the sleepy children. Drive for an hour until they wake up then stop for pancakes. Then drive for three more hours, stopping for lunch and for a playground or lake if they looked like fun. Arrive at the hotel in time for a swim where the water would drain all the pent-up energy and maybe just clean them a little bit too.

Once though doctor’s orders insisted that we fly because I was eight months pregnant, with twins. We dressed the four boys alike, maybe a little bit mortifying for the bigger siblings. But it was a good idea because, at Calgary airport, even before we realized we’d lost one of them, a lady came up and said she’d seen one just like these heading around the corner.  

Our very last move, saying one final goodbye to Ottawa, involved myself and the six children, off to join Richard. He had moved to Vancouver three month earlier. We allowed two nights in the Chimo Hotel, for our house to be packed up and cleaned. On the last day the air conditioner broke gushing water around all the boxes in the basement.  As my Nana would say, “It’s always something!”  Guess what though, in one day you can get a new air-conditioning unit installed before the new owners take possession at noon.

We needed three limos to get us and all our bags to the airport. Seven people, two bags each plus carry on. That’s a huge volume. In both senses of the word! At first glance, the flight that the forces booked for us seemed crazy ridiculous. Our seven seats were scattered throughout the plane. Just before my indignation took hold, a sweet heavenly thought stroked my heart. This was a gift. I took six-year-old Becky and sat in our allotted seats.  Her twin brother Peter sat with 15-year-old Simon. Little Richard and Mark were 10 and 11 and felt very grown up sitting all by themselves. ‘Mr. Cool’ Timothy, who was 14, got a whole trip to Vancouver without any sibling interference.

It has been a crazy wonderful ride.