Our house has acquired an echo. That's a good thing; it indicates that we're well on our way toward our goal of emptying our house in preparation for selling it, so we can move aboard SCOOTS and sail away into our next adventure.

But it's also a little eerie. As much as it heralds the coming of our new adventure, it also hints at the wonderful times we've had here, when children's voices and parrot squawks bounced off these same walls where the echo now reverberates.

It's hard, this in-between time, balancing between our previous adventure and our next one, one foot (and parts of our hearts and souls, too) planted firmly in each. Still engaged in one, not yet embarked on the other.

Last weekend, we had our “Gone Sailing” Estate Sale. It was a pretty successful sale, as most of our belongings went out the door, the property of new owners. Some of these new owners asked us if we felt sad, to be parting with our possessions. When we thought about it, we realized that we felt oddly detached from these items. It was as if they'd ceased being ours, the moment we'd decided that we weren't going to keep them.

Our motto during the sale was, “Anything that isn't attached to the house is for sale!” and we meant it. But we even went beyond that: I unscrewed my dragonfly doorknocker from the front door, so I could sell it to a woman who really wanted it.

It was a happy occasion, too. Eric and I enjoyed meeting the people who were giving our former possessions a new home, sharing stories about the items they were taking, and hearing stories about how they would be used in their new homes. We felt happy to know that many of our items were helping to furnish new apartments for people just starting out on their own. We'd been there once, and it felt like we were giving back, somehow.

Now that most of our possessions are gone, the house is strangely bare. And there's that new echo.

Creatures of habit, we still glance toward the bare places on the wall where the clocks hung, or expect to see our reflections when we walk past the place in the hall where the mirror was. We still open the drawer where the cutlery was stored, and the cupboard where our dishes were kept, and reach for a pot in the pot cupboard, none of which is there anymore, of course. When we catch ourselves doing this, we just laugh.

It feels sort of like when we first started out as a couple, and didn't have many belongings. Only now, almost thirty years on, we know what it feels like to have a lot of stuff, and then to part with it.

Getting rid of stuff is easy, once you've said goodbye to the pets who've lived with you their entire lives, and most of yours. Our pets have embarked on new adventures of their own, with great new families, but we sure do miss them. Their absence also contributes to the new emptiness in the house.

Everything that didn't sell during our sale is now listed on Craigslist or Ebay, and people come by, a few every day, to look, and sometimes to buy our remaining furniture. We're taking bags and boxes of stuff to the homeless shelter and Goodwill, to the Friends of the Library, to the dump. With every sale or truckload, the echo is getting more pronounced. That's a good thing.