When my partner and I relocated to a new-to-us Chicago apartment — an antique-feeling number on the corner of the sixth floor — we made the mutual decision to forgo movers. “It’s just one studio apartment’s worth of stuff,” we reasoned. This was true, but we had underestimated two variables: December in Chicago and our motivation to schlep boxes after a seven-hour drive in a U-haul.
The day began agreeably enough. Snow fell in fat, lazy flakes, lending a picturesque quality to the afternoon. By the time we crammed the last moving box into the freight elevator, though, the sun had set, and we were sore and shivering. Upstairs, we surveyed our new home — bare walls, hissing radiator, mattress propped against the floor like a 1920s bohemian. The idea of assembling furniture or venturing out into the tundra for sustenance felt cruel.
