Travelin Light

This is how I am spending my weekend. I am sorting, and throwing and giving away my stuff, again. Again, because I just downsized 4 years ago when I sold my house in Owatonna. It was hard then, because I am a pack rat, and because my stuff embodied for me dreams of how I thought life was supposed to be, or might still be, if things turn out right. If this sounds complicated, it is. When I was growing up, it was the end of the era of girls having hope chests in my middle class, midwestern world. There was a whole company, Lane, that manufactured and sold hope chests. In these hope chests, girls were putting linen, and china and things like that in hopes of one day having a home and a family. Because this was now the seventies, hope chests were sort of a thing from the past, but being the romantic that I was; I bought my own old trunk at a garage sale, and bought a few things myself. Like crystal water goblets from J.B. Hudson Jewelers. Soon I added gold plated silverware that I got as a premium from saving money at my bank.

Before I knew it, I was all of 21, married and had a trunk full of hope and some stuff, and more stuff from wedding presents. Soon, I was gonna have a baby. My husband brought home a car seat and a rocking chair and we were on our way to having a lot of stuff, already having acquired a love seat and chair, and of course bedroom furniture, and a mahogany table from his grandmother. Then, once the baby was born, I was pulled to my roots, and believed (when most moms were working) that I should be a stay at home mom, like my mom was. So, I quit my job, and dropped out of college, and stayed home. But now home was no longer an apartment, but a mother-in-law walk up attic in my husband’s grandparent’s home. There was storage space, so there went most of my very nice, pretty stuff. I was trying to balance the intangible with the tangible. My mother loved stuff, and had lots of beautiful antiques, and a big house to have it all in. Holidays meant for me, the table laden out with cloth tablecloth and good china. Now I was living in an attic with my child, my husband being gone most of the time.

Five years later, my husband and I bought a big home in Owatonna. Finally, finally, the hope chest could open, the crystal would be used and life would be well. But soon, I had two more children, and so with three kids, life was too chaotic to be worrying about crystal. The life that I thought I would live, never happened. And not too much more time passed, that I was more worried about intangibles again, like the relationship with my husband, that was no longer working for either of us. I started back to school to finish my undergrad degree. I started reading and writing again. And now, now I started to see, that The Story for me contains, both the tangible and the intangible, it bridges these worlds. The paper on the page, the ideas in the mind. If I tell you about the crystal, and it is gone, it is not gone. I can have it but not store it, not dust it, not worry about breaking it, but I can see it in my mind, feel it in my hands, the way the rims curved outward, the stem so sweet and thin, and the way it sparkled in the light. I remember how excited I was, putting them in my hope chest.

So, it was yesterday, and I had to face the fact that in my changing careers, in moving from Owatonna to Minneapolis, in this terrible economy, I am going to have to try to sell my condo before I lose it entirely. I don’t know for sure how this will work, or where my daughter and I will end up, renting, or living with relatives, but I do know, that once again, it is time to downsize, to give away more stuff. This time, I think I need to finally let go of the hope chest dreams. To quit thinking that I have to have stuff, that I have to be preparing for a home that I don’t yet have, I life I’m not living yet. I can’t keep doing this to myself, as I try to live more and more in the present. But it is hard, I have a beautiful brass chandelier hanging in my bedroom. It makes any room look very chic, very French. I picked it up at a garage sale in Owatonna; and my daughters and I, all by ourselves, installed it one afternoon in my bedroom. We were budding electricians, all of us. Hip chicks in a big house on a corner, women alone, making it work. I took it out of my house when I sold it, and put it in my new condo. And now, as I worry about packing and moving, and where will I end up, I struggle with wanting to take down my chandelier, pack it up or away, and take it with me. It makes me feel a little crazy, like trying to keep things the same in a world that constantly changes. A little bit like I’m not keeping in balance. Like it is just One More Thing to do as I’m trying to get this condo ready to sell and move on, traveling into my future, and I need to travel light now. Anyways, where would I put it? How about on paper?