I spent what appears to be my final day in the home on Bay tonight. All the walls are bare. All the spaces are quiet. All the rooms are empty with one exception. My Grandma Mayernik’s old washing machine is still in the basement. It has to go. My friend Mike is here to help me take it out of the house and place it on the curb. I cannot help but be emotional. We have spent 10 years at Bay and have enjoyed 15 years with that washer. The only reason I have it is because my grandmother unfortunately passed away a couple weeks before our wedding. And it was given to us to use in our first apartment. For 15 years every time I did a load of laundry I thought of my Grandma. All three kids onesies were washed in it. Every pillow case, all the socks, stuffed animals, shirts and pants at one time passed through this washer. While memories of my Grandma were passing through my brain. The realization of it not coming to the house makes me sick. I know it’s just an object but it’s hard to let go. Two of the cycles are broken. A newer washer was left in the new house, but some things are just hard to let go. Now it sits on the curb. Ready for someone else’s basement. Part on me feels like I just stepped into the movie Toy Story and that washer watched me drive away the whole time saying… “Wait! where you going! Stop! What about all the onesies I had to wash? What about the memory of your Grandma?” Crazy. Some things are just hard to let go.

Here’s my Art Director’s attempt at some good old fashioned “Fishingpoet” poetry. This is stuff I thought about while I walking through the empty home for the last time.

Home vs House.

Home is where we lived. House is what we bought.

Home is where we played. House is where we have yet to.

Home is where we slept. House is where we renovate.

Home is where we packed. House is where we unpack.

Home is where we sorted. House is where we organize.

Home is where we cleared. House is where we tear down.

Home is where they grew up. House is where they mature.

Home is where I think of my Grandma every time I do a load of laundry. House is, your damn right I am still going to think of my Grandma every time I do a load of laundry.

Home is memories. House is unknown.

Home is the past. House will be, the future Home.

…and the cycle continues.