The Third Trip Up

May thirteenth. I want to be clear that I volunteered for this. Nobody drafted me. Simone mentioned, at the end of a shift sometime last week, that she was moving Saturday and her cousin had canceled, and I said, out loud, with my whole face, that I could come. I don't know what I thought that meant at the time, but I know what it meant by eleven in the morning: it meant the bookshelf.

We did four and a half hours. The half was the lamp, which didn't fit cleanly in any load and ended up traveling sideways under my arm on the last trip up like I was carrying a confused flamingo. By trip three I had stopped talking in full sentences and Simone had started doing this thing where she counted steps out loud, not as encouragement, just as information. Twelve. Eleven. We took a break on the landing between the second and third floors and Simone propped her phone against a box and took a picture and I think we both looked exactly as destroyed as we felt, which honestly I respect. No performance. Just evidence.

the mandatory thirty-second wall break

We sat on the floor of the new place for probably twenty minutes once the last box was in. The apartment was mostly empty still, boxes stacked, lamp against the wall, afternoon light coming in the window in that particular May way that makes everything look more golden than it has any right to. Simone was mid-sentence about something, I don't even remember what, and I was just looking at her like yes, continue, I am listening from the floor. The collapsed bowl is on my windowsill at home. The pottery class was Wednesday. This was Saturday. I think somewhere in the middle of all of it I forgot to be tired.

done. for now. probably.

I'm home now. My ankles hurt. I'm counting this as a workout and nobody can stop me.