What will you take with you when you go...

On January 30th we will have been in New York for 8 years. Prior to that we were in Sydney for 2 years and London for a further 8 years. Long time. While in Sydney we packed up a house. Not knowing where we were going or for how long, we put it in storage. There eight (not one, not two, not three but eight!) containers, each large enough to fit a modest car, languished, waiting for us to return...

This August I went through the containers. I felt embarrassed about how much crap we had saved. My only excuse, that we didn't know what we were doing, how long we were going for (originally it was going to be a year, and then it just extended) but really, did we have to save empty peanut butter jars and pay their storage for years? It was a relief to throw them away. I dumped piles of stuff on my family, threw loads of stuff simply out, and reduced the load to a mere 3 containers (my husband was still in NY, all his boxes, how was I to know which weird computer cord was important, and which was junk? All they remain... for the next 8 years probably...)

But there were a few, small, pristine boxes marked - to be shipped to New York. I knew most of them were full of CD's. Hundreds of CD's, maybe thousands of them. I knew my husband missed them. So, too tired to ferret through them, (it really was an exhausting day) I just said, ship those to New York.

Now you may have been seeing


but I was seeing


Yesterday, ironically, suitably, on Australia Day, the boxes arrived. Today I've gone through them. I don't know how many of my husband's CD's will actually be relevant, but the one box of books shows me clearly what was important to me then, is not important to me now. It was full of text books on Psychotherapy, which I no longer practice, and the complete works of Dennis Lehane (yeah, I'm stumped on that one too) No wedding photographs. No old romances that I still twinge to read. One of DH's boxes actually has videos in them. We don't even have a video player anymore.

We did get the beautiful and very fragile glass vase (which arrived in perfect condition) and a beautiful round glass lamp (ditto) and a few fragile perfume bottles we had bought in Venice many years ago. So some pretty artifacts. But mainly, it feels like an archaeological dig, which reveals what we valued so many years ago, is not nec what we value now. And I guess, all information like that is valuable, because it teaches me that I don't need so much stuff. I'm shedding things everyday (dropping off bags of books to Housing Works, to paperbackswap, giving bags of clothes to local organizations, just letting it all go.)

Well, the stuff from Sydney is also stuff I can let go... All I really need is those wedding photos...

treasures in storage

Had the most momentous month - new baby in the family, such a sweet, sweet angel. We spent too long in hospital with him, but now he is all better.

I also went through our stuff in storage, upset about how much junk there was, and then finding the occasional treasure.

I found this poem I had written when my son was not yet 2 and we were visiting Italy -

In a foreign country
Warm with Mediterranean sun
We seek the cool
of the local museum.

In a fine dusty building
With its impressive courtyard
We carry the pram
Up massive marble steps.

Not giving it much thought
We expected the baby to sleep,
Or failing that, watch the people go by.
But he found another use
For the large empty rooms
And high vaulted ceilings.

As we rushed by golden works of art
Nothing could stop his enchanted chirping
As he experiments with the echoing chambers.
All through the gallery,
His ‘singing’ could be heard.

As I nervously hushed him
One more time
An older woman stopped me,
‘Il contento’, she said, ‘he is happy.’
And we walked into the sunshine smiling.

So happy we have a new baby in our lives... just magic the gifts they give