‘And that’s why I like living in community,’ she said. ‘We share each other’s lives.’ This sage thought came from a near-stranger, now friend, who I met just today, who offered me and my two small companions generous kindness as she saw us struggling in the lunch line, who sat with us afterwards as E and W played on the college lawn, and who, to the less than quiet background noise of  children’s excited play-voices, opened her heart like a bird unfolding its wings.

There’s no way that one word alone can sum up the experience of moving house. It should have four or five names, at least, to begin to reflect the massive creature that it is, with all its many arms and heads, and the way it takes hold of your life for a few intense weeks, gets in your face, wraps around you, and threatens to entangle you.