Gratitude List

For anyone planning to move soon, especially if you are of a certain age, before making your multi-page to-do list, may I suggest starting instead with a gratitude list? Trust me, you’ll need it to get you through the thornier and more tedious parts of the process.

I moved last Thursday and literally counted down the days, then hours, before the movers arrived. There were many reasons for this, most having to do with the actual apartment I was living in.

In fact, the landlord had early on acknowledged the problems therein, enough to reduce my rent for almost half of the seven months I lived there. So, my gratitude list would certainly include that. Plus these:

--The places I could escape to work while living in that apartment, starting back in January: Starbucks, public libraries, the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square, Whole Foods in Edgewater;

--Jeff at Bookends & Beginnings Bookstore in Evanston who came and picked up my eight cartons of donated books back in March;

--The small tap room in the back of Cardinal Wine & Spirits in Lincoln Square, including Bob & Herman, the evening bartenders, and all the regulars who were welcoming to me, a relative newbie;

--Gene’s Sausage Shop & Deli in Lincoln Square where I got the great sandwiches to go with my beers on those nights I hung at Cardinal;

--those neighbors from my former neighborhood in West Rogers Park—to where I was returning—enthusiastically welcoming me back even before I officially arrived last week;

--those sunny, warm days in early April when I sat in Giddings Plaza in Lincoln Square and watched all the little kids run around, laughing, chasing each other, falling down and getting up with smiles still on their faces;

--St. Gert’s church in Edgewater, which kept me relatively grounded as I made my way through the sorting/recycling/packing process that began in March;

--and, of course, Valencia and Ramiro, my movers who arrived two hours early last Thursday to move me.

There’s much more to be added to the list, of course, including that I am blessedly back where I belong.