It wasn't until I was removing a scrap of Ogilvie plaid and my grandmother's brooch from Greta's shoulder the night before the movers came that I realized what this move really is. I had been thinking of it as a little break from New York, a chance to explore Europe with our kids and buy us a little time to save up to combine apartments with the neighbors'. But as I contemplated which room in our house in The Hague the dress form should inhabit, I realized that never again would she be shoved into a living room because there was nowhere else to put her. She may not always have her own room, as she will have in the absurdly large house that awaits us now, but with this move we are graduating from young couplehood and early parenthood, the stages when a cozy apartment was our preferred footprint. We and most of our friends now have children, multiple children, in fact, and things like a dining room or the ability to stomp without disturbing the people downstairs no longer feel like luxuries, but necessities. I would like to think we have not graduated from city life entirely, but this form of it, definitely.
With the end of the school year, we have been celebrating other graduations, as well. Violet turned in her kindergarten smock to the school director and sang:
Start spreadin' the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it
First grade, first grade!
In the fall, lunch will be in the cafeteria with the big kids, and she will do her schoolwork in a desk. She is sad about leaving her friends here, of course, especially after the backyard movie nights and playdates with favorite friends that coincided with the end of school, but I have been impressed with how completely she understands what we are doing and that she is up for the adventure.
Townes is no longer a baby, but has the cutest little waddle of a run, a keen sense of comedy, and a word for whatever he wants to communicate, which is mostly "fun!" "play!" "bite" "thanks!" and his own name and those of the people he loves. Steve is eating barbecue in South Africa and negotiating with Saudis. I just finished my first (and maybe only) residential interior design gig and am working on a book or two. It's a whole new world out there, for all of us.
And now that we have said our goodbyes, had our last milkshake and pretzel at Cafe Sabarsky and buns at Bauhaus, and done our last load of communal laundry, off we go. Our furniture is on a slow boat to the Netherlands, and our car is packed for a cross-country road trip. I'll post along the way. Goodnight, New York City! We love you!
