On Boxes

I'm sitting amidst boxes, and newspaper, and books. Mostly, I'm sitting amidst a lot of stuff piled up around me that I have yet to determine the sentimental value of, in terms of what I will keep and what I will not. I've been here before. I guess each time it feels the same, yet also different. It's so weird to pick up something and hold it in my hand and decide once again to keep it. A whole series of little moments like that will determine what stuff I will still have when I'm ninety and wrinkled and living in some old house somewhere, if I make it that far. And it's a whole series of little moments like that which will determine what memories I will retain, to some extent; since so many memories are triggered by a glance at a letter, or a sideways look at an old knick-knack, or a book, or a photograph. I would like to get rid of all of this, but only if it means placing it in the hand of a dear friend and closing their hand over it and putting my hand on theirs to make sure that they have it firmly clasped in their own. I can't do that, as friends are not storage spaces and they should not be treated as such. Instead, I will send a lot of this stuff out into the ether. It's weird how many things we manage acquire and then shed during our lives, and it's weird how much of it will still exist after we die. Unlike other animals, we don't manage to shed a big chunk of our skin in one long sheath, but we manage to make the things and people around us our protective layer, and we shed some of it as we go, but hold onto what matters. The older I get, the more I realize that the things that matter the most are few, but worth holding on to; and I realize that I only need so very few things to carry on.

We do so much in our lives to try to make ourselves live longer and to try to remind others of ourselves after we're gone, yet some little piece of wood that does nothing and says nothing manages to outlive us every time. Maybe that's why we cut down trees: We have an innate inability to bear the simple fact that these beautiful entities are going to keep living and growing longer than we can or will, unless we do something about it. This thought makes me sad; and yet it reminds me that I can't wait to be living in the trees again. It's comforting to be surrounded by things that have been around since before I was born and are going to still be around even after I am gone. If there's anything heartbreaking about moving, it's the thought that I might not be able to show people that I care as well as I would like to when I am not around to see them and let them know; but that's where trust comes in. No one wants to hear me tell them all the time that I'm glad they exists, and one of my faults it that I have a gross habit of doing this. People want, I think, to just have it be understood that their presence is meaningful in another person's life. I think I only say it so much because the more I care, the more I fear. Perhaps growing older is about learning to detach oneself not only from what matters the least, but more importantly from what matters the most. Strangely enough, it seems sometimes that the most guaranteed way of holding on to something is also the most intangible. A loose grip is a strong grip, especially when it comes to people. It will be nice to have a lot of space around me in which to loosely hold onto things and in which to learn how to hold on to very little. There's a lot of fullness in that empty space, and a lot of this fullness seems to be comprised of thoughts and dreams and songs and love and art.

Sitting amidst boxes, strangely enough, it is my future that flashes before my eyes more than my past. I've had moves in which the memories flooded over me and overwhelmed me to tears, but this time there's a feeling of acceptance that rushes over me. None of what awaits me beyond this point is yet determined, and somehow this is comforting where it should be terrifying. There's a point where it means being more at peace with oneself to just toss the dice. I feel more comfortable in my own skin when I let myself exist outside of what I know and what I love, in a place where I know very little and can expect nothing. I trust the people in my life enough to know that although I may see them rarely, I will still see them. Some may slip through the cracks, but they'll still manage to have changed my life forever, dramatically or subtly.

I don't know where I will land, but eventually I will land somewhere, and it will be home.

On Packing

Each of these objects that I pack into boxes is not an object at all, but a thousand tiny little memories wrapped up together; some of them bigger than others. Some of the smallest objects have the most memories associated with them. Some of the largest have very few. All of these things, all this crap; it's just stuff. It's stuff that I love, but it's still just stuff. It's the people in my life, not this stuff, that I really wish I put into boxes and take with me. But I hate to see the people that I love stuffed into boxes.

One of the hardest things to throw away today was a tiny, plastic, parachuting man that I bought once, using prize-tickets won in a game of skee-ball with a really dear friend. I threw it away because I recognized that it in itself had little significance to me, and I recognized that the memories existed there even in its absence. I'm going to a place where I hardly know anyone. I look forward to feeling small and I look forward to being surrounded by strangers. I look forward to trusting only those who earn my trust and I look forward to spending a lot of time alone. I look forward to filling that space with thoughts and adventures and new things that I might make. I look forward to reading new books and shaking new hands. There are plenty of other piece-of-crap just-object objects for me to fill with memories, and I have plenty of time left in my life in which to do this.

Packing this stuff, this stuff that I suppose I do love, I realize how easy it would be for me to just get rid of it all. The more I pack, the more I realize that none of this constitutes who I am or what my life is. None of it gives me the sense of my life itself. The real grit and the backbone of what matters is totally invisible. It's the memories, and it's the people. When it comes to moving these objects, it could be simple. I could store these items, and wait long enough to forget what I had stored, and then stop paying for the storage unit and let the storage company people just get rid of it all for me. I've heard of people doing that, as a way of being more cutthroat about what they are willing to get rid of. It seems instead to me that they are paying the storage sheds, and paying time itself, to make them forget what it is that they are supposed to not be cutthroat about. I guess this makes sense. I'm not going to do it, and it wouldn't be my style really, anyway; but I could. It's far more plausible that I'd just decide to put everything in a huge dumpster and then walk away from it, with a great sense of loss accompanied by a feeling of victory. The thing is, I can't forget anyone who mattered to me, and no one's going to come along and get rid of them if I try to forget them for a long enough period of time. I don't want anybody to come along and get rid of them. I want to sit on porches with them and drink whiskey and lie in fields, staring at the sun. All of them.

It's strange: I'm bringing with me all the things that I could see myself so easily getting rid of; and I'm leaving behind all the things that, try as I might, I don't think I could ever truly walk away from. Perhaps this is a good exercise in independence; or perhaps it's a realization that I've put myself in storage for too long. Whatever it is, I'm not convinced that what I'm actually throwing away amounts in any way to a little plastic parachuting man, and I'm not convinced that what I'm planning to take with me is really stuff at all. I'm taking with me a million moments and laughs and pangs of sadness and every other emotion I've felt over the years. I'm taking this with me, and it's all at once lighter than air and heavier than lead. Maybe this is what Kundera was talking about, but in the context of a shift in geographical location.

I've got so many amazing people in my life, and I've loved fiercely until it hurt. But this time, I'm going to find myself a home. I'm going to fill my rooms with all the memories that I have, and I'm going to cover the walls with all of your faces, because that's just how it has to be. Maybe I should call off the moving truck and just consider myself smashed under the weight of the things that I hate to leave behind. I'd rather, I suppose, not do this; and just lug the crap that I do own all the way to my new home. I'd rather be smashed in the embrace of an old friend's hug when I finally get to see them again. I'd rather keep everything that matters, because only the things that do not embrace one-another are crap (the books, and the cables, and the kinked wires), and even the crap reminds me of those that do embrace.

To distract myself from the strong sense of missing that I am already anticipating, I think I'll probably learn to find comfort in these objects, even if they are just objects. There's something to be said for a warm quilt that smells of laundry detergent, even if it just reminds me of someplace else. Until I have new friends and until I make new memories, this will do: a warm quilt, and a cup of tea, and my own young old self.