Estate Sale, interior.

Lately Bianca has been going online looking -- somewhat randomly, I suspect -- at real estate.  Browsing through different possibilities of places she might consider moving to.  She sends me the links.  What do I think?  A house in Little Rock, brick, circa 1899 in the Quapaw Quarter, with matching white pleather sofas in the living room and Kermit the Frog draped over the newel post.  A shabby stately home in Ireland.  A 1904 "Victorian" in Mt. Tabor, Oregon which needs work [Here].  A lot of work, from the looks of it.

Would you really go and live in Oregon? I ask.  Or Little Rock?  Or Ireland?

It is easier to imagine moving somewhere locally.  A month or so back we go to an estate sale.  Not too far from either of us, but far enough away to be a neighborhood we could both wonder about living in.  The house is certainly big enough.  A family has apparently lived here until recently.  School pictures at various stages in a variety of frames.  Old children's books from the 50s and 60s in the library. 

"Nancy Drew," a fellow browser of books observes.  She is a woman of a certain age with a brusque and efficient air.  "Sotomayor read Nancy Drew books," she adds.  "They were her inspiration.  Made her want to be a lawyer."

"Is that true?" I ask, and the woman gives me an aggressive look.  

"I'm from that part of the Bronx," the woman answers, establishing her credentials.  "I know what she came from.  It's a miracle she survived.  A woman like that?  We should be so lucky to have her as a justice."

Lately it seems that no one is reluctant to share their views.  Everyone except me seems eager to express their opinons and if need be argue.  I always thought Nancy Drew solved mysteries but I don't want to argue so I say something to the effect that more girls should read Nancy Drew.

"From your lips to God's ear," replies the woman.

I have seen enough and want to go.  Bianca has been looking at the costume jewelry but she does not have a good feeling about the house and neither do I, so we cross it off our mental list of places we would be interested in living or moving to.  The list, as you might imagine however, is long and not easily diminished. 

Whenever I make a mistake, as I have done recently at work, I think I will have to quit and move away in disgrace.  I imagine packing what will fit in the truck and driving through the night.  Sometimes I think I will go north and sometimes east.  Rarely south, and west is not an option, given the Pacific Ocean.

"But where would you go?" Bianca asks.

Go where?  I ask myself.  Yesterday I called my good friends in Montreal who said of course I could come and stay.  Shortly thereafter, crisis averted, I realize I am not going anywhere.  It is simply a way of letting off steam, giving vent to the anxiety.  You get mad at me and I think I need to leave town.  I don't know if anyone else ever feels this way, but fear is a great motivator to go away.  "I'm going," I think I will say.  "Don't worry, I'm going right now."  There's an odd sense of relief that comes over me with the thought that this time I really will go.  Walk out the door and leave everything behind.  They can have an estate sale of everything left behind.