Can a retreat be a triumph?

The final stages of our move between flats have been 'interesting', in the spirit of the curse, "May you live in interesting times". 

Stretching out the move over several days has advantages and disadvantages, but listing them in the sense of making a choice between them is meaningless, because we effectively had no choice. 

So while we enjoyed our comfortable bed and available WiFi at the "old" flat, we also put up with the fact that whatever we wanted was already at the other flat, or worse—as happened one night—the tape needed to seal a box was inside the box that was being sealed, and as soon as it was sealed we needed the scissors to do another job, said scissors being inside the just-sealed box. 

Now we consider ourselves reasonably smart people and try to plan ahead. So the clothes we needed for our last couple of days were carefully not packed away, nor were the cleaning materials needed to clean the flat when we finally departed. On the other hand the piles of things not packed away, because we thought we might still need them, were more than a little daunting. I was reminded of a recent experience helping someone move out of a townhouse on much shorter notice than was originally planned and what a scramble of throwing stuff into random boxes that was. This experience feels similar.

We mentioned in a previous post that our old flat, starting off fully furnished, had been occupied by 14 years of senior missionaries, many of whom refurnished according to their own taste, and some of whom, unaware of the sacred nature of the landlord's stuff, cheerfully threw away anything they did not care for. This left us with a flat full of stuff, and the landlord's inventory to compare it against. An inventory, may we add, that included such gems as "selections of dishes" and "ample cutlery" and even "assorted utensils", to say nothing of "pots and pans" In just a few instances we could be sure that something actually belonged to the landlord. In just a few instances we knew for sure that something had been purchased by the missionaries that we replaced. Everything else was a judgement call.

Now add to this dilemma the fact that our rather compact new flat is (was!) very sparsely furnished, with minimal furniture and nothing in the kitchen that was not actually built in. We needed dishes, kitchenware, you name it. So! What could we legitimately remove from the old flat to use in the new? Fortunately, and after much agonizing, we realized that the old landlord's mother's taste was very different from ours (The landlord had inherited the flat and its contents from his mother). It therefore seemed reasonable to judge ownership on the basis of what we liked. If we really liked it, it probably did not belong to the landlord and we should remove it from the flat. This principle, though it may sound a trifle unprincipled, worked well for us, and both flats are now nicely furnished.To be honest, a couple of trips to IKEA also helped. Our new flat, by the way, has two double beds and three mattresses, two supplied by the landlord and one from the old flat because it was so comfortable (and also new) that we weren't going to leave it there. We mentioned to the mission housing coordinator that we planned to remove it, and she said perhaps we or the mission should buy a cheap mattress to replace it, but we pointed out that the original mattress would be at least 14 years old by now and it would probably be cheaper to pay its depreciated value. We will see.

Today is February 5, and this evening is the first non-Sunday evening that we are free to just relax, and not sort, pack, and generally worry about inventories and moving. Our moving experience felt like a long, drawn out trek across town.

Perhaps, considering it is cold and wet, Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow may be a good analogy—or an even better one is the British retreat from Dunkirk in World War II. More than 300,000 troops were stranded on the French beaches in the early stages of the war and Britain scrambled together a flotilla of assorted boats to rescue them—it was way too chaotic and piecemeal to call it a fleet. Civilians in pleasure boats joined in the scramble and the majority of the men were rescued over a nine day period. 

That’s the analogy I want, a chaotic scramble of cramming things into assorted containers; Especially as we have been unable to locate a source of decent packing boxes and have been completing the move by loading up our own rag-tag flotilla of lots and lots of shopping bags and also filling our suitcases with stuff, hauling them across town, dumping them out at the second flat, and then hauling them back empty, to pack another load for the next day.

Although Winston Churchill sincerely congratulated the participants for what they achieved at Dunkirk he tempered his encomiums by pointing out that wars are not won by evacuations. Nevertheless the operation is recorded in history as the Miracle of Dunkirk, and the British did go on to win that war. We were likewise optimistic that we would finish this move and triumph in our own small way. We now can look forward to enjoying the peace after the conflict, that is to say, to having our evenings free to do activities of our own choice, whether those be family history, jaunting around Edinburgh, or just peacefully sipping hot chocolate and watching a movie. 

But for now we have arrived, and then we got a hidden blessing. Louise could not find the thread and needle she needed. In the process of searching for it she unpacked every remaining suitcase and container of every type, and found a place to put each thing. By Sunday morning, mirabile dictu the flat was completely unpacked and tidy. And she found the sewing kit. For the first time since we left for the MTC on New Year’s Day we feel like we are actually here and settled.