The room I'll miss the most

The truck is here. I'm sitting in the kitchen -on the last unpacked chair in the house- as the stunningly efficient movers load everything we own into the van. It is happening almost too quickly. I want to spend more time saying goodbye to this house.

This house has represented adulthood to me.  I was alone at the closing table on the day I bought it: no spouse, no parent, not even a friend. Doing such a big thing all alone felt empowering and exhilarating.  I remember rushing over from my attorney's office and laying in the middle of the bare wood floor in the living room. It was my house!

As I have been walking through the empty rooms this morning I have been working to actively recall, remember, and store my favorite moments and best feelings.  I will never forget all the bedtimes stories, all the dress up fashion shows, and the frequent reminders to "stop jumping on the bed" in my daughter's room. In my office, I remember nascent ideas shepherded to full expression. In my living room, I still feel the heat radiating from many cold-winter-night family fires in the fireplace.  On my back patio, I can still hear my daughter and her cousins shrieking will delight as they run through the sprinkler. And the kitchen, oh the kitchen. We lived in this room: breakfast every morning, homework in the afternoons, dinners most evenings, turkeys roasted on the holidays, cookies baked on the weekends. We threw great parties in here. We welcomed our friends and neighbors. We played music and cards. This room was the heart of our home and I helped design every square inch of it. I picked the cabinets, chose the tile, and approved the layout. But the kitchen is not the room I will miss the most.

There is one room I will miss more than any other. More than the intimate living room, the cozy reading nook, the welcoming kitchen, the romantic bedroom, or the efficient office I will miss my basement.  No room in my home captured my imagination more fully than my basement.  I understand this sounds nutty, but every single time I went to my basement I felt like as if I had arrived.

On the finished side my basement sported my grad-school futon, a television, and a stationary bike. My daughter's toys were all around and her play kitchen and table were set up in the corner. It was the kind of room where furniture that was still beloved but no longer beautiful found a home. It felt ramshackle, friendly. It was the very definition of a "family room." It was the unfinished side of the basement I liked best. I was thrilled every time I went to do laundry in my front loading, stainless steel, washer and dryer. I loved seeing my holiday decorations stacked in neat plastic bins and my tools arrayed on the built-in shelves.  I kept an extra fridge in the basement for holiday leftovers and big platters when I entertained. I loved the big plastic table where I folded clothes and wrapped Christmas presents. I loved that my house was not built on a slab, but was rooted deep in the earth, held up by a solid foundation, supported by something so big, and spacious, and real.

My basement was the symbol of my independence. It was also the place where I could collect stuff. Stuff went in the basement because there was room for it there. The dark corners were filled with all sorts of boxes, bags, doo-dads and thinga-ma-jigs that I didn't need or use. Collecting stuff in the basement was easier than making the choice to throw them out. Easier even than donating them. My basement stuff helped me feel protected from a sense of want or deprivation. As long as I had my stuff everything would be ok.

The stuff was a false security blanket. In fact every time I thought about moving it was the basement that kept me from feeling I truly could do so. All that stuff seemed too overwhelming to sort and too scary to discard. I felt vulnerable and naked when I even considered shrinking my stuff down to only the things that I truly needed and absolutely loved.

That is why we tackled the basement first when I finally worked up the nerve to put the house on the market. Grammy and I rolled up our sleeves and took a couple of weeks to donate the old clothes, throw away the unneeded papers, find charities to take the old furniture, and friends who wanted the old toys. Mom learned how to safely dispose of the old paint. Parker willingly gave up the play kitchen she'd outgrown.  We were merciless in our choices. We reduced, donated, and trashed everything that needed to go. But I am taking that washer and dryer with me!

Today I bid farewell to my basement and hopefully to the impulse to make myself feel safe by stacking up stuff. I am moving to a city that lies below sea level. In New Orleans homes are far more likely to be jacked up on stilts or rest on pilings than to sport deep, subterranean basements. I am giving up my stuffed-filled basement and my stuff-filled life.  Moving is about making room. But still...silly as it seems, I think I will miss my basement most of all.