It is not very often that I find myself unable to write about things that I wish to write about, but once in a while, I do.
Many reasons; sometimes there's a lot to write about and I prefer to embargo it until I'm more free. Sometimes, however, it is that I don't have the spirit (or the courage) to look back at the memory, and so I shove it aside- hopefully, just for a while, temporarily, before I grasp the strength to relive the experience again.
To be honest, moving here to Chalethouse wasn't so large an issue when one considers the nature of what moving house is.
But we were working with limitations, and we (or at least I) was working with a spirit and energy differing greatly from how we shifted out from Ceylon almost three years before. It was just me, really, this feel-too-much heart of mine, that had me wondering just what, and how it was, that after three years, I were not only leaving with a taste of sourness, I was also leaving with the same d*** baggage that I had already by then begun carrying over three years ago.
So, yeah, on looking back, it was with a fair bit of sianzness that saw me sorting things out, packing things up, and rearranging them all over the house, here and there.
I honestly have no idea where I ought to begin writing this.
Do I just place the pictures here and let them go as they are, or do I write of it bit by bit by bit?
Maybe, let's just start with the fact that I had, in fact, begun packing, in the month of August. We had, by that time, figured, that we would not be staying after a stipulated time, and so, me being me, had begun sorting, and packing at that time.
It is amazing just how much stuff I had brought over to Steppyhouse, and how much stuff I now actually wanted to throw.
I had grown tired of baggage and belongings.
Amongst the things I threw away there were stuff that I had held on to for years, thinking that perhaps one day I might be able to put them out permanently.
All these now I decided- in August- to let them go.
I can't remember just what it was I first put into a plastic bag and threw in the bin, but my childhood diaries- long kept- were some of them.
What's interesting is that I didn't even take any pictures, just straight into the bag, and the dustbin downstairs they went.
But this isn't an article about tossed diaries and journals.
This is about the move.
Which, for some reason, despite all them efforts to whittle down, still came to all these.
How is it that a person can have so much stuff, i don't understand.
And, admittedly it is a little hard seeing these pictures now for the memory that I don't yet want to revisit, but that's how we were for a couple of weeks, living amongst boxes taken out from the storeroom, filled with stuff of various kinds that I don't know which is which and which is what, then shifted here and there.
These boxes, particularly the ones in the first picture, stood for a while by the window of the living room, and these were bags that once housed random stuff that we had just simply thrown in and left them there.
His monster bag held all his clothes.
And the carrier bags held random pieces of stuff that I don't know belonged to who but were placed there.
Of course there are boxes by the toilet door that are familiar for what it is they hold.
Like the Ninja food blender, the Sharp microwave oven, the Karcher floor steamer, and the Karcher vacuum cleaner, all of which we packed at the very last minute before bringing the whole load over.
Whilst, in the meantime, Steppyhouse had her own sense of chaotic, organized mess that only people when moving house will understand.
To this day, four months after, I still cannot comprehend just how it is that we had so much barang barang here, there, everywhere.
Hardly, if never, is it that on the counter top I have upcycled green tea bottles holding not green tea powder but random powders of all kinds. Or glasses that we brought down from the cupboard placed next to the wet wipes and the penknife waiting to be packed into the boxes.
Hardly too, if never, would there be three thermos flasks (of three different colors), one mug (bought and brought back from Bangkok) sitting next to more random green tea powder jars, some plastic containers, a bottle of white vinegar, and an organic cooking paste of flavor that I'm not sure what it was but am sure we bought it from Thailand.
But that's how moving was.
One of the last few pictures I have of moving season out from Steppyhouse are these boxes which on the second last day we brought out to the lift landing near the fire exit.
It really helps to have boxes that are stackable.
And then there are these luggage.
To be honest I now cannot quite remember just what it was that were in these large suitcases. Some of the things I'd thrown away had been kept in the yellow suitcase and the brown suitcase. I'd probably replaced them with files that I deemed more essential and more important.
What my purple suitcase held, what my red suitcase held, I too don't remember. Very likely they were documents and files that held papers and files of a personal nature, and which were not able to be tossed away (you never know just when you will, and might need them)
The umbrella's gone, by the way.
I disposed it off at the very last minute.
Umbrellas are not things that you bring along when you're moving house unless they be of sentimental value, and a Standard Chartered umbrella was none.
Finally, there was my big MUJI straw bag that I had specially reserved to hold as many of my stuffed toys I could pack in. Originally I had thought I be able to pack in Steppy and Buckley, but as it turned out, nope. The rest of my toys took all the space in.
Not only was there the orange net bag which held all the little stuffie animal keychains I had bought from Daiso.
Beneath that bag there was Humpfff, Pooh Bear, Fullerton Bear, Mikan from Kaohsiung, Toots the Frog, probably Conrad Bear and, very likely, at the bottom, Cable the Otter from Hong Kong.
You know what's funny?
I have very, very little pictures of the actual moving in we did with Chalethouse.
It isn't that I didn't want to take pictures.
It was just that I was too pooped to do so.
Moving here this time was an experience, an adventure (if one wants to call it) that I hope will not be repeated next time we shift again.
I'd earlier said that there were limitations.
And there were, some that we didn't know, some that we hadn't been told.
We hadn't known that we weren't supposed to do moving of any sorts into the unit after 6pm every day.
We also hadn't known that we had to actually apply- and be approved- for a permit from the MCST to move furniture and whatnot into the unit.
Not just that, we too hadn't known that there was no moving in on a Sunday.
So everything got a bit confusing and a tad more tiring than we thought it would be.
Especially since we had planned for a night move, as well as a Sunday move.
The night move, thank God, we managed to get through- no way would we have been able to shift those boxes away to another place otherwise.
But the Sunday move had to be postponed till Monday the next day- refrigerator and all.
The frozen food made it.
That wasn't the end of it.
There were lots of stuff that we had to shift in ourselves.
I won't say at which building we dropped them things- it's not nice- but let's just say we had to shift boxes onto the trolley, shift the trolley onto the bricked pavement, and push it- weak wheel and all- until we got to the lift
It wasn't fun.
That's all I'm going to say.
In any case, whilst I don't have a lot of pictures of the move, I do have, however, pictures of the food we ate during the move.
There was a well-deserved McDonalds dinner- fries, burger, nuggets, everything.
And a much-needed Kopi O Kosong next morning from the Marine Parade hawker center downstairs.