A Bubble Off Plumb

I wrote before about this building, how it has been the newspaper office since forever and how we’ll miss the history associated with it.

What I hadn’t counted on until I started removing items from the walls in my own little cubbyhole was the emotions it would bring for me.

I have tons of letters, notes and cards that I pinned up in a nook. Most were congratulatory, supportive or words of encouragement. A few told me what a blithering idiot I am. Moving brought the feelings I had when they arrived right back to me.

I packed up awards I have won. All I could think of was what Arlene Higgins would say about all of them that weren’t blue ribbons – ‘It should have been first place.’ If one of us messed around and did win a first place, she would huff and say something like – ‘It’s about time.’ She was always in our corner, no matter what. I miss her. Every. Day.

Other than the days my children were born, I have spent probably my happiest days in this rabbit warren. There is little better than coming to work knowing you are doing the job you were born to do and learning to do it well.

Driving a horse-drawn sleigh may have inspired more outright joy at being alive and in the natural world, but the deepest satisfaction I have ever had happened right here.

I have probably spent more time alone here in this little office than the law allows, but it is also where I have become at ease with my own company. There have been late nights and early mornings and chewed cuticles, but I have learned and gotten faster and better at what I do. I’m comfortable with who I am.

There are items I’m packing up that remind me of what an honor it is to have this seat, this job. Like a red satin jacket emblazoned Watonga Republican. I wonder how many times it ran up and down the football sidelines with a photographer inside during the Tim Curtin years.

There are the recollections of D’kota Jenkins growing up in these rooms, under our very noses. The time Chad Waters’ dog all but bit a hunk out of me. Our ups and downs and wins and losses as a family.

Those folks have all moved on now, to other papers or jobs. Arlene, of course, has gone home to Jesus. I’m the one with the memories, bittersweet and packed away.

It will be very similar in the new digs, only in reverse. What is this, why did I bring it and where do I put it? New noises and late-night sounds to get used to. The idiosyncrasies of a new building to learn, like does the lock stick when temperatures are freezing and what day is garbage picked up?

You can’t move to a new home without missing the old one, at least a little bit. Even if the memories are bad, they are comfortable, familiar.

This shabby little office of mine will always feel a little like home, even while I am making myself at home in the new place and making new memories there.