I sit here at my desk, overlooking Millennium Park, with a pile of mail, including renewal notices for Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Art Institute, Grant Park Orchestra, a few museums, Lincoln Park Zoo and more.  And I’ve had two calls in the last week, Am I renewing or not? If not, they will give my seat away…just a courtesy call to make sure I don’t want to renew.

I’ve never felt so popular. But it reminds me of the many changes I still must do related to this move: address (how many magazines and journals do we subscribe to—too many), bank, health insurance, driver’s license, homeowner’s insurance, voter registration…you can add to my list. I’m happy I still have most of my marbles.

In a recent conversation with my young adult grandchildren, I told them my next move is on them. I will entrust them to pack our boxes and do all this piddly-but-important work; I will direct their activities from the rocker I received as my retirement gift from Trinity Christian College 16 years ago and have not had time to sit in.

I feel a bit overwhelmed this morning: our realtor has just canceled a showing of our condo today (this means I don’t have to clean—yay!); we leave for Sioux Falls in the morning (I just made reservations for a hotel tomorrow night—we no longer make the 9-10 hour trip in one day); we meet with our new banker on Thursday afternoon; we attend our  young adult  grandson’s college graduation in the area on Friday; we hope to close on our new home sometime next week; I’ll host a garage sale with my daughter next weekend (we do this often and have lots of fun); we attend the graduation of our preschool grandson the following week; then come home and pack up over 1600 square feet of stuff to get ready for our June move. That’s for starters.

So when do I do this paperwork?

Never fear!  At bedtime, I’ve been reading poet Luci Shaw’s Adventure of Ascent, her musings, at 84, on aging. In her account, she aims to be “scrupulously honest.” Her goal is “to keep growing, even as the number of years add up, and up.” She wants, using the words of fellow poet, Christine Inman, to be “feasting on distances.” She wants “to look ahead to a far horizon with confidence, without flinch or fear; to let myself be gloriously blinded with possibility.”

And I want that too. I want to be  “gloriously blinded with possibility,” so, to begin, I will get dressed (it’s almost noon), progress the washing, iron a few things, get out my suitcase, start packing, eat lunch, and attend one of the bittersweet last meetings of my writing group of 15 years

And then leave in the morning. The paper work can wait.