Flour in the can

Last year, when I moved away from Seattle, I gave up a lot.

I know that things weren’t perfect. But in my 7 years in the Emerald City, I established quite a life for myself. Friends who became family. A home that I loved. The opportunity to do music on a regular basis. The knowledge of a city that comes only with time and experience. The feeling that I belonged.

Seattle was home. My little studio in Wallingford was home. The people made it home.

When I moved out of my apartment last June, in the last frantic moments of trying to pack everything up before I had to turn over the keys, I took my canister full of flour and dumped it out into the trash can. I hate to waste anything, but it didn’t make sense to move something like flour along with me; I knew that someday, I would root myself somewhere else, and refill that canister at that time. I hoped for that day – anticipated that that day would someday be a reality.

Fast-forward 8 months to where we are right now. I spent a long time living out of boxes, and even when I moved into my apartment here in Nashville last month, I was without furniture. I have basically had to start over, building a household almost from scratch. This has been a challenge, especially with no budget and no grown-up friends to give me their hand-me-downs. It’s funny what we take for granted…

But it amazes me that no matter how old I get, it still feels good to know that I have parents who will drop everything to help me out. Earlier this week, my mom and dad drove the 9 hours from Kansas City with a truck-load of boxes and furniture, and spent 48 hours whipping my home into shape.

They were rock stars. They hung curtain rods and pictures, and moved in a couch and a bookshelf and a table and chairs, and put my new license plates on the Honda, and took me shopping for some necessities. They loaded up my pantry with soup and salsa and chips, and my freezer with chicken breasts and loaves of bread. They bought toilet paper and allergy medicine and a trash can for my bedroom. And yes: they got me a bag of flour.

As I was transferring the flour from the bag to the canister, I was filled with this strange sort of hope – a feeling that everything was going to be okay. Life is not always going to be stable and comfortable, but no matter how uneasy I feel, I know that it won’t always be that way. Someday I will have flour in the can again.

So while Nashville doesn’t exactly feel like “home” yet, my little apartment does. And it’s amazing how much that buoys my spirit right now.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. Even at 25, it’s times like this when I am so thankful that I’m still just your kid. And I don’t know that I will ever understand your selfless acts and gifts until I’m a parent myself.