i am no stranger to the pack-it-up-and-move-your-stuff-from-here-to-there life happening–the here and there a mix of choice and no choice, of fresh starts or tries again, of togetherness or separateness, of adventures and misadventures.  i had lived in 13 different places since i’d moved out of my parent’s house after college and only first learned the peculiarity of this during a job interview when a straight-faced suit, upon reviewing my application answer to, “please list all addresses held in the past 7 years,” asked if i was a gypsy.  it was probably this same thought that drove my stoic father, practical as news radio, to suggest that, with his help, i purchase my first home.

after weeks of apartments, houses and condos that were too small, too run-down, too expensive, too far from the city, too something, we eventually settled on a townhouse—a pre-construction unit, a mile from the urban cool of davis square.

and i should have been ecstatic.

but that first night, trapped in the hollowness of an un-lived house adorned with the giant realization of responsibility, i looked at the end of the still tagged, red microfiber couch from jordan’s furniture and asked my beloved, semi-affectionate-and-only-on-her-terms cat, betty, how we would fare in forever, in permanence, in the anti-pack-it-up-and-get-the-heck-out-of-here-or-to-there arrangement.  white-masked and bibbed and otherwise a sleek black, her distinctive boggly eyes held my inquiry for a brief moment until she blinked and turned easily away, unconcerned.