Farewell to Bow

Letting go of a home

Our East London flat will always be the first place we were a family: a skinny loft with a giant factory window set into the exposed brick.

It was too small for the three of us: the pram couldn't get through the door without bouncing against at least three corners. Our dining table became a changing table; and with the bassinet set up, there was no place to hang drying laundry.

But it's the place Robert and I moved into together: our first home, when I didn't know I was pregnant yet. That deep blue couch is where I lay nauseous during the first trimester, and has the armrest I gripped during labor contractions.

I filled the double-high walls with watercolors and little ink drawings. In our pistachio-green KitchenAid set, we made endless smoothies, muffins, freezable dishes of fresh-noodle lasagnas. I hosted dinner parties. Friends slept on the couch downstairs.

I grew to treasure the closeness. We could hear each other—or the baby—from any part of the place.

We built a community: friends and neighbors in the building, down the block, a short walk away. I became enough of a regular to share a snack with the owner of my favorite produce shop.

I never did eat an eel pie at G. Kelly's or watch a match in the West Ham stadium, but I learned the FC's anthem lyrics (they're painted on the doors), and discovered almost every way to enter Victoria Park. I know which bakery has the good sourdough, and which cafes serve tea in teapots.

We might come back—I wouldn't mind it. But our next six months are Stateside, and we're not keeping our London lease.

It's a good thing our apartment was so small, because everything in it had to go.

"We should start by sorting piles," I suggested weeks ago, "of pack, sell, give away."

We made our way piecemeal through the objects of our lives, working around the dual demands of Robert's job and our still very young baby.

We sold 114 items on Vinted in just over a month. Between baby cries, I'd grab from the "sell" bin and photograph an object. I could list it while nursing, and once it sold, package it during a wake window. Robert could drop it off on the way to work, or I could wear baby in a sling to the post office.

"Guess how much we made," I quizzed Robert when we cracked £1,000 in sales.

"I think those are just realized losses," Robert corrected dryly. But the goal is divestment, not profit: 114 items we're not schlepping to America.

We started selling and giving away objects when the new year started, leaking dresses and foam rollers, books, spices, inks. But weeks later, the apartment looked no emptier.

We ramped up. From our Mary Poppins purse of an apartment, belongings were re-homed in flats across the complex, sealed into parcels, and bundled away into the charity clothes drop bins.

We gave away so much stuff that the repeat-customer neighbors started offering chocolate and wine. I got a photo of our rug looking beautiful in its new apartment, and updates from the new keepers of my plants. Our pantry extras were collected by a neighbor who works the local soup kitchen, spices to people welcomed me when I first moved in.

Some folks stayed to chat as they picked up giveaways. They smiled. They wanted to see the baby. We would have become friends, I think, if we had spent more time together. But moving is always bittersweet—more so, the farther you go.

It's an unromantic end to our tenure. We were sick the last few days of the lease, so I missed a final luncheon with my fellow mums. The apartment hasn't felt cozy since I sold the big palm. The shelves went, contents emptied onto all the flat surfaces. The nightstand, claimed by a neighbor, was replaced with a cardboard box.

When the apartment dropped below a critical threshold of functionality, I found us a friend to stay with. Robert commuted between the two places, packing while I watched the baby and coordinated stuff giveaways from afar.

At long last, we ran out of time. Move-out inspection came at noon. Robert collected the last bags, cleaned, gave the vacuum away. He bought a cake at the patisserie when he got back to us: a taste of exhausted celebration, finally packed to go.

The little loft in Bow was home for a short but critical moment of our lives, and now it is a gone place. But we've left a trace: almost a scattering of ashes—pans, clothes, plants, bassinet—spread to the winds.

Photo by Kelsey Breseman

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