It has been nine days since the movers came, and only now have I had a chance to write an entry. What an enormous amount of work to reduce a whole life to a 10 x 20 storage unit, ten bags and four carry-ons. (We learned our baggage allowance was two pieces per person on United, and as our originating airline, NZ Air honored that. So, yes, hockey equipment was taken.)
The last four days in Portland were a whirlwind of disposal – selling, donating, dumping, storing, and multiple trips often to the same places over and over again, because, frankly, we were so sleep deprived, we couldn’t remember diddly. The most remarkable thing about those four days was the generosity of our friends and neighbors. A couple, deserve mention by name. Melissa Majid for taking over the care and feeding of the kids for two weeks, or four years, depending how you look at it. Elena and Ted Morrow-Spitzer for taking anything that didn’t fit in our storage unit or couldn’t go, like our canoe and outboard motor, particularly when it showed up announced on their lawn. Adam Arens of Patriot Subaru for not only buying both our cars for probably way more than what they were worth given how pitifully we took care of them, but for making it so easy that he even let us take one of them to the airport and leave it in short-term parking the day we left, after he owned it and had already given us a check for it. (I hope I didn’t make things difficult for you, Adam). This man is the definition of mensch.
If you need to buy/sell/fix/trade a car, GO TO PATRIOT SUBARU- NOW! (They even compost in the showroom) (This concludes the public service announcement portion of our programming schedule. We now return to our regular blog post.)
So far, the theme of this part of our experience centers around stuff- owning it, getting rid it, being attached to it, valuing it, etc. I found deciding what to part with and what to keep really illuminates a life and a personality. I think even more than what a person articulates about values, having or not having things and what people choose to own it is a much greater visible, tangible proof of those values. The process of actively having to decide, in one fell swoop, really brought to the fore the issue of who we are and what we wanted to be at this point in time. It took me time to move away from the urge to save from the fear of not having. I found I had to let go of the idea that I might not have something when I get back, so I better keep it now: like the old upholstered chairs that Reuben drew on with a pen and we pretended was just a part of the pattern of the fabric, and Sam rocked back and forth on so many times we had to warn guests not to sit in them or they would topple over. Yup, those I just had to save. (Thank you Steve for talking me out of saving them.) Steve was much clearer about keeping what he loved – fishing gear, hockey gear, biking gear, boating gear.
The issue raised itself again after we were in Florida visiting family, but in a very different way. We made a conscious purchase decision and had bought a new laptop to replace our old desktop which was 1) too large to take to NZ and 2) so filled with bloat and viruses that it only went on the internet if the sun was rising in the second house of Mars on a Tuesday in months ending in the letter ‘Y’. We got a large-ish family laptop. Not hugely portable, but with a good screen for watching movies and playing games and that’s how the kids are going to use it mostly anyway. I had been considering a netbook for myself so I could write (and cuz I don’t want to share. There, I said the truth.) Steve had bought himself an unlocked 4G phone to use as a phone and camera and video and Skype. We thought we were set technologically speaking. One laptop. One phone. When we arrived in Florida, my father had gotten us a Kodak Play camera. It is a waterproof video camera, good to 3 meters. Very cool. And my brother gave me a wonderful gift of a netbook as a going away present. The two laptops needed to be set up. The phone too. Now we are a four device family. I am extraordinarily grateful for the gifts. I think they are going to be a tremendous addition to our experience and I am so psyched to have them, but when we were packing the carry-ons for the flight to San Francisco, I was feeling like we had a lot of stuff again. It is the dual side of possessions. It is simply the nature of owning things; they are both a blessing and a burden.
So what do you think about possessions? Do you possess them or do they possess you?
2 comments:
I found out years ago you can replace possessions. Keep what you can for now and worry about it later.
Dad
The question is: should you replace? What do you really need? And can you(we) maintain a level of mindfulness to notice when possessions or their pursuit get in the way of relationships? This is what I sometimes struggle with and think that many in our western society do as well.
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