The Relocation Blues: An Inquiry into Transitions

By John Walters

Life is full of transitional experiences: relocations from one place to another and one job to another, setbacks due to accidents and injuries, the loss of family and friends, and the metamorphosis from youth to old age. This lively memoir takes you on a journey through transitions the author has experienced while traveling abroad for thirty-five years, seeking a place to call home in his native United States, raising five sons, and pursuing excellence in the art of writing. Besides telling his fascinating tales of multitudinous changes, the author shares tips on how to adopt a lifestyle that makes transitions more manageable. As uncertainty and confusion threaten to overwhelm us all, this memoir is not only entertaining and exciting, but also relevant, timely, comforting, and helpful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Astaria Books
• Release date: Feb 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201570439

John Walters

John Walters recently returned to the United States after thirty-five years abroad. He lives in Seattle, Washington. He attended the 1973 Clarion West science fiction writing workshop and is a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. He writes mainstream fiction, science fiction and fantasy, and memoirs of his wanderings around the world.

Book preview

Introduction: Once More unto the Breach

Sometimes when I take my daily walks in this quiet, tree-lined neighborhood in north Seattle I find myself envying the people who own the houses I pass with their commodious interiors, spacious yards, and landscaped gardens bursting with flamboyant foliage. These people possess their own property and can shape it to their will; they have a space that they can call their own. So it has not been for me, at least since I left Greece with my sons in 2012 and moved back to the United States. It has been one rented house or apartment after another, and every time I have managed to establish a routine, extenuating circumstances of one sort or another have forced another move.

And thus it has happened again. Until now, one or more of my sons has always been living with me, and we have had to have appropriately-sized accommodations. Now, though, my youngest son is heading off to college and I have the need to downsize. If I could count on the rent staying the same in the place where we have been living I might not have bothered with the move, but the landlord assured me that as soon as COVID restrictions are lifted, the rent will be significantly raised. By shifting into a one-bedroom unit in the same compound, at least for a year I can lock in a slightly lower rent than I am paying now.

What's the fuss? you might say. You're only shifting from one unit to another in the same apartment complex. That should be easy. Not so. The unit I am moving into is at least a city block away from the one I have been living in, and in between is an obstacle course of other buildings, slopes, and steps. There is the matter of purging enough furniture and other items so that my belongings fit into the new place. And there is the packing, the lifting, and the carrying.

The purging has taken weeks and is still ongoing even in the aftermath of the event, and the move itself has taken several full days. A process like this is traumatic. It involves uprooting and replanting, ripping out one phase of a life and patiently allowing a new phase to begin to grow. When I was in the midst of it I had to press forward resolutely even during periods of exhaustion and despair. A quote from Shakespeare's Henry V came to me. I used it at the beginning of America Redux, my memoir about returning to the States after thirty-five years abroad, and it seems equally appropriate in this situation.

Once more unto the breach, my friends, once more...

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood...

Now set the teeth and set the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit

To his full height...

For there is none of you so mean and base,

That hath not noble luster in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot...

You might say: But Shakespeare was writing about war; you're only talking about moving from one location to another. If you look at the activities literally, perhaps. But moving is in fact a metaphorical battle, especially if you do it over and over with no end in sight. Once, in the days of my youth, drifting from place to place was fun, but I am weary of such moves. I truly have to summon up strength and resolve to go through it yet one more time.

As I mentioned above, for weeks before the move I sought to lighten the load by getting rid of things I didn't need. That meant taking a trip to Goodwill in a borrowed car to give away household items I never used, and dropping books and DVDs off at little free libraries in the neighborhood while on my daily walks. Whenever I contemplated how many things I still had left in terms of having to move them from one place to another, I still felt burdened and stifled. As I began to pack everything into boxes and bags, the job seemed endless. The new apartment was in the process of being cleaned; the assistant manager had shown me a similar unit so I could get an idea of the size and layout, but as yet I had not even seen the apartment I had committed to. He said it was not policy to show units before they were ready. The reality is that this complex is inexpensive compared to normal rental prices in this part of the city, and units are generally claimed almost immediately after they become available and long before they are ready to show. That didn't bother me so much; I had moved into my previous unit sight unseen; my sister had arranged it for me while I was still living in Yakima.

What caused me stress was the short window I had to accomplish the actual move. It was ironic that now, when I needed their physical assistance the most, all five of my sons were out of town. This was the first time in years that at least one or two of them wasn't around. Desperately I sent out an email to relatives requesting assistance.

Meanwhile, I negotiated with the management office for a window in which to accomplish the move without having to pay overlapping rents. In the end, all they could offer me was one weekend. I would receive the keys late Friday morning, and the move had to be completely accomplished by late Monday morning.

I packed things into suitcases, boxes, and shopping bags. It was not only my belongings but that of my sons. One or another would stay for awhile and then take off for somewhere else, but leave things for me to store for them. There seemed to be no end to it all. It was like the many-headed Hydra that Hercules battled: as soon as I filled up one container, more stuff sprouted up all around me.

And still I had no confirmed offers of assistance. If I only had more time! I daydreamed of the new unit being already empty and cleaned; I could carry over a few things a day at my leisure, and eventually I would have most of it shifted from one place to the other. Instead, as the scheduled weekend approached, I was attacked with intermittent paroxysms of uncertainty. Would someone come? How could I possibly do this?

Just a few days before the deadline, I received affirmations of rescue. One of my big strong younger brothers called and said he'd come on Sunday with his pickup to help me move the heavy furniture. A sister, her husband, and another brother showed up on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to help me with the multitudinous lighter items. It was a frantic three days, no doubt, but it all got done. I was left, by Sunday night, with a mountainous heap of belongings crammed in disarray into the new place. I had to get my food from outside because the kitchen was in chaos, but I managed in the midst of the jumble to carve out enough space to set up a bed frame and mattress so I could sleep.

In the film series Lethal Weapon, as maniacal bad guys shoot at them and his younger partner Mel Gibson cackles with glee, the aging police officer played by Danny Glover often exclaims in dismay, I'm getting too old for this shit. That quote occurred to me numerous times during this move. And yet... Life is all about transitions. The only time you really stop moving is when you die. By then, your spirit will be long gone, going through more changes, exploring new worlds. Until then, we get through the difficult parts as best we can. The good news? Despite all the heavy lifting over a period of days, my back and muscles suffered no ill effects, not even unusual aching. The often tedious-seeming routine of calisthenics and yoga that I have been doing for decades paid off after all.

*     *     *

This memoir grew like Jack's beanstalk from this latest move. It started out as a tiny seed: I thought I would write a short essay about the move that I could publish on my blog. When that essay, which now comprises the beginning of this introduction, was completed, the subject of transitions had sunk its multifaceted tendrils into my consciousness. I wanted to explore it further, so I decided to write about the various moves I had made with my sons - from San Diego to Yakima to Brooklyn to Yakima to Seattle - since returning to the United States from Greece in 2012. This is only a small portion of the relocations I have made in my life, of course; I have visited around fifty countries and lived for significant periods of time in over half a dozen. But I have written extensively of my overseas travels in my memoirs World Without Pain: The Story of a Search, After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece, and America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad, so for this essay, The Relocation Blues, I focused on the years after my return to my homeland.

While I was writing about physical moves from one place to another, my thoughts turned to some of life's other transitional events and circumstances. For instance, writing has been my defining occupation since I was a teen, but to support myself and my family I have undertaken many different types of jobs. Each job brings on a transition into a new mindset. These musings led to the essays Concerning Work and The Alaska Story. Illnesses and injuries always bring about significant changes in our lives, so I considered these in the essay called Maladies. The entire essay called Maladies deals with various afflictions that I have experienced in my life, and if reading about topics like this makes you uncomfortable, you can of course give this section a pass. While doing an initial proofread of the entire memoir, though, I noticed that the segment in which I describe a fairly recent hospital stay is the only place in the entire book where extended action is described in present tense. That's because I wrote it soon after I returned home from the operation, and to me the present tense account of the experience gave it a sense of immediacy. Initially I thought about rewriting it in past tense so it would conform to the style of the rest of the book; however, I decided against this for two reasons. First of all, in an essay dealing with accidents, sicknesses, sprains, alcohol and drug abuse, food poisoning, broken bones, social diseases, poisonings, operations, and other physical traumas, this is the most immediate and vivid anecdote of all. I wrote it while it was still fresh in my mind, and it has a clear crisis, struggle, and resolution. To convert it from present to past tense merely to cause it to conform more smoothly with the book's overall flow would be to dilute it and render it less effective. Secondly, you can consider the abrupt transition from past tense to present to function as a disclaimer. If reading about a frightening experience that happened to me in a hospital might make you squeamish, skip over the present tense passage.

Thinking about the transitional nature of friendships and other relationships caused me to write About a Friend and Lost Loved Ones. And Getting Old delves into the positive and negative aspects of the inevitable changes we go through as we age.

As you can see, one subject led to another as I pondered activities and experiences that have brought about transitions in my life. It was illuminating and yet befuddling to realize how transitory my life has been compared to the people I see around me and encounter on a day to day basis. Most of them have lived their entire lives very close to where they were born, and they have kept the same job throughout their careers. As a result, they own more things and have more stable economic foundations, although the stability of many has been eroding during the current pandemic. But everyone experiences transitions of one kind or another, whether we move around a lot or we live in one place for our entire lives.

After considering the changes I've gone through in locations, employment, health, relationships, and so on, my thoughts turned to things that have provided me with a measure of stability through all these transitions. That's how the section Managing Transitions was born.

I cope with periods of transition mainly through behavior patterns and activities that provide continuity and contribute to good physical and mental health. When you have ongoing habits that create a bedrock of well-being, you can more easily weather the blustery winds of change. One of these stabilizing life patterns is exercise. When I was young, travel, managing and maintaining households, raising kids, working, and other suchlike activities served to keep me slim, straight, strong, and flexible; however, when I got to be around forty years old, I realized that to stay on top of the bodily changes I was going through as I aged, I had to undertake a regimen of regular exercise. As the essay Exercising relates, that regimen evolved along with my needs. Accompanying the focus on exercise, at around the same age I had to begin to regulate my diet. In my youth I had always been able to eat as much as I wanted of whatever I wanted and still remain lean, and in Greece fresh healthy food is ubiquitous, but especially since I returned to the United States, which has a surfeit of chemically-infused fatty foods, I have had to become highly selective about what and how much I eat.

I exercise several times a week to maintain strength and flexibility, but besides this I take long walks every day. Perhaps someone who goes somewhere outside their home daily to work may not find this necessary. Working at home as I do, though, I find it imperative to get up from the desk, get outside, and give my entire body a good long stretch. That's what the essay Walking is all about.

I have never been much into participating in organized sports, but for many years I played basketball whenever and wherever I could, not in a competitive sense (although pickup games occasionally occurred) but rather as a means of meditation and self-improvement. I write about this in Regarding Basketball as a Metaphysical Experience.

Often some of our most profound transitions take place when we are all alone. In Embracing Solitude, I discuss the difference between solitude and loneliness.

Finally, I have included essays on the two activities that define my life: reading and writing.

When I first contemplated the section of the book on managing transitions, I thought that I might merely add essays I had already written on these topics as a kind of appendix. I soon realized, though, that this approach would be insufficient in dealing with the complexities of the various subjects, and so most of the writing is new. However, I have included excerpts from a few previously published essays as accompaniments to the new material on exercise, playing basketball, reading, and writing, and I have pointed out each instance of these additions in the text.

A thought that struck me while proofreading this volume was that in several places I return to and retell germinal events in my life (such as, for instance, the moment I realized I had to be a writer, or my stay at the Clarion West writing workshop, or my decision to leave home, hit the road, and travel). I thought of perhaps trimming away the duplicated accounts so that only one of each event was left. However, upon further contemplation I realized that each time I tell of a particular event it is from a different angle. As I time travel in memory and ponder past events, on each visit I describe them in different ways. Think of these journeys through time from one memory to another as you would physical journeys. Visiting and describing a location once does not preclude you from doing it again. Each time you enter a place, even if you have been there before, you experience it afresh because you are approaching it from a new perspective. Or if you were a photographer attempting to capture the image of an important object, you would not take one picture and then call it quits. You would probably take several shots from different angles, and each picture would illuminate further facets of the object's totality. This memoir is not a purely chronological account of my life. Instead, it approaches certain germinal events from different perspectives in its pursuit of insight into the overall theme of transition.

I mentioned earlier that this book grew from a tiny seed like Jack's beanstalk, and yet in a sense that analogy is inaccurate. It has come about from an exploration of my memories, and those memories were already there. It is more like a trek or voyage through landscapes I have glimpsed long ago. As I journeyed onward, more and more vistas became illuminated and opened up to me. The past has a reality of its own, and as we explore its treasures, besides reveling in its wonder and excitement, we can use it as a tool to unlock the present.

*     *     *

A final note before plunging into the main body of the book: when I had finished most of the text I began to contemplate the subtitle and to wonder whether it might be misconstrued. Gender transition is a relevant issue nowadays. I have encountered several people who have undergone such transitions while attending parties hosted by local writing communities. My concern was that members of the transgender community might take offense or be upset by my use of the phrase an inquiry into transitions because I am heterosexual and not trans and I do not address the issue of gender transition at all. I thought of making the subtitle an inquiry into changes instead, but it didn't have the same ring to it. I decided to write to an award-winning, best-selling transgender writer and get her opinion. I have not yet met this particular writer, and I had no idea whether she would be amenable to offering advice in response to a query out of the blue. Anyway, I located her email address on a professional forum and then wrote and sent my question, half-expecting that I would never receive an answer, knowing that nowadays sensitivity readers are well paid for their work and I could not come near to affording those prices. Low and behold, after several days she replied and said she was happy to help. In her opinion, it is clear that transitions in my title refers to life transitions as opposed to gender transitions. She mentioned that I might get some initial interest confusion but she doubted anyone will get upset because if they take the time to look at it, they'll understand what you're talking about. This is what I was thinking as well, so after this confirmation I decided to keep the title as it is. Without further ado, then, let's begin to explore the multitudinous transitions I have undergone in my life.

The Relocation Blues

A single-bedroom apartment has opened up in one of the newer buildings in this apartment compound, what the landlords refer to as mid-rises, and I will be moving there in a few weeks. This transition is the latest of several I have undergone since leaving Greece to make a life for my sons in the United States.

We have been in the second floor two-bedroom apartment we are in now for about seven years or so, the longest by far we have lived in one place since arriving back in the States in 2012. I have usually been content here, if not happy, but one thing I have longed for from time to time is a garden or a balcony, somewhere I can go and breathe fresh air while taking breaks from work and yet still be on my own turf. The new apartment is on the fourth floor and has a spacious balcony. I anticipate pacing this balcony when in the throes of thought about words, sentences, paragraphs, characters, story structures, settings, themes, and so on. I can't always be bothered to dress into clothes suitable for the public every time I need to get outside and intensely cogitate. I have considered moving farther away to a place outside the city, preferably near the sea and surrounded by greenery, but it has not proved to be practical. The outlying areas, including the nearby islands, for a wide swath around Seattle have become gentrified and are presently unaffordable. No matter. The apartment with the balcony will do for now.

How did I come to be in this situation? My wife and I were living well, raising our five sons first in an apartment in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, and then in houses we bought in small villages in the lovely hills to the east of Thessaloniki. And then came the split; my wife and I ended up living as separate individuals in the same house, still focusing on nurturing our family but no longer as a single unit. And then came the disastrous economic crash that pummeled Greece like a hurricane and left it decimated, broken, gasping for breath. My interior state mirrored the national situation, but I struggled on for the sake of my sons and because even if you're drowning you try to keep your head above water as long as you can.

I was hit by all kinds of despair, but in the midst of my misery I somehow managed to look around and contemplate what my sons were experiencing. Throughout the country few jobs were to be had, and for those that were available, employers looked to hire full-blooded Greeks, not half-foreigners. If the breech between my wife and