Finding the Phoebe
The Movement of Moving (the Cardboard Box Kind)
Welcome to Vera Monstera! Movement is everywhere. Step into an embodied world where life springs from the power of play and slow-osity. What’s that? It’s like velocity, but instead of speeding in one direction, we dive into spacious, internal rhythms. No destinations, but lots of sights to see. It means the world that you’re here!
Subscribing for FREE helps bring visibility to these hidden moments in movement. And it helps Vera Monstera grow.
Change happens, and with change comes change.
-Pádraic Ó Tuama in 44 Poems on Being with Each Other
I run into Phoebe while feverishly raking leaves. Or, I should say, she runs into me.
Between us stands the hill that slopes to the sidewalk. It seems slight, but I’ve seen it take a few people out. I’m saying it’s an ankle-turner. But the hill is beside the point.
I am cranking wet leaves into a radio flyer in the cold December air. We are preparing to move. Will buyers balk at blanket of leaves? They might not. But will they? Sweating in a parka while contemplating big change is a particular kind of heat.
Phoebe pauses with her dog and peers up the hill. A smile.
My rake stops, but thoughts keep cranking, calculating. How many days, how many boxes, how many unknowns? It’s not quite Christmas. We don’t know where we’re going. And in the middle of it all, I can’t help stooping to rip English Ivy out of the ground. I won’t be here in spring to see what sprouts when it’s not choked out.
The maple planted 50 years ago towers over us both, laughing. I have yet to meet the magnolia on the other side of this all.
Phoebe looks friendly and familiar. An air of “older and wiser.” As I age, that rare combination gets harder to find. I say hi.
Recognition flickers across her face. “I think I met you the day you moved in!”
That day, 8 years ago, I was fumbling with a baby and a dog. Probably. It’s a blur. But I remember being so happy to meet someone. To feel “here.” I asked for Phoebe’s number. She said she doesn’t usually walk over this way, but what the heck. She was warm and welcoming and still set a boundary of “this is it.” I never called. And never saw her again. Until today. What made her round the corner?
“Whoa, you’re right! We did meet when we moved in. We loved it here. But now now we’re moving out—”
Emotion, emotion. Gut drop. In with the new. Out with the—
“Crazy. That’s what all this raking is about. I can’t believe I saw you when we moved in and now we’re moving out. You must be my transition person!”
Without missing a beat, Phoebe nods. Wavelength, wavelength. Gut drop.
“I believe in that. I love that I’m your transition person.”
As I waver in the mysticism of these bookending encounters, she tells me a soothing story about the craziness of moving. Her words wash over me, melding past, present and future. I heard myself writing this essay already, my lines overlaying her story. I space out and miss part of what she’s saying.
Oh, right. Her friends were moving upstate. Lots of moving parts, et cetera, et cetera. Like everyone else, they didn’t know how they would get through it. You can’t know that until you’re doing it. Moving begets moving. And then it all works out, she says.
I believe Phoebe. I have to. The poet Pádraic Ó Tuama writes, “Change happens, and with change comes change.” As I jot down his quote, I add a period by accident—a longer breath. But the way he wrote it without one is rhythmically correct. No pause. Until we stop time and jump universes, we keep hurtling forward.
Nothing shows us change like moving. All the dust we collect. All the things left behind. Spaces yet to fill. Old friends we cling to. And friends we haven’t found. They say moving is up there with a death in the family. And, as change will have it, that will happen in a few days, too. But that’s another story.
Phoebe is right. Or she is eventually. I stand on this hill that won’t be mine soon and mourn. Death behind and ahead. The emptying of everything. The unknown things that grow inside the empty. This month we’ll move, ready or not. We can’t know the storms ahead that will soon feel like plague after plague. We can’t see the streaks of bad luck where we laugh a little and cry a lot and close our eyes before the next hit, which does come.
The name Phoebe means bright. Clear. Radiant. Phoebe, the ancient Greek goddess, is connected to the moon and to light. So is flesh-and-blood Phoebe standing in front of me.
We part ways.
I really hope that someday I can be your transition person. Whatever your change may be. I hope that when you’re up on the hill, I walk by with a dog and a bright moon above. I hope I have something soothing to say to thread you through the keyhole.
You’ll say, “hey, I think you’re my transition person.”
And I’ll say, “I believe in that. Let me tell you about Phoebe.”
“Motion and experience seem naturally coupled. Move, and new experiences open themselves up to you. It makes sense to be able to record these inputs and put them to use in our own private quest to thrive. This is the birth of learning. ”
-Zoë Schlanger in The Light Eaters
I know it’s been a while since last we saw our heroes. But while I’ve been cranking and changing and hunkering down against winter’s wild ride, things have been ruminating underground. Secret wood aster seeds hitched a ride and sprouted. The magnolia outside is bursting with ridiculous, marvelous mauve.
Things are moving even when I think they’re in a dead standstill.
Somewhere along the line, 100 of you signed up for Vera Monstera. I can’t thank you all enough for reading, supporting and hanging with me through moments that move. For me—someone who barely shares (but is working on it)—this number feels like a mathematical impossibility. It feels like a billion gazillion. It feels like wow. If you’d like to hop on this ride, subscribe. Or tell someone who likes to move or be moved.
And I am thrilled that Vera Monstera is listed in the SmallStack library. In addition to offering a great library celebrating small but mighty publications, SmallStack offers wonderful community, resources, featured posts and a whole lotta love.
