stuff

My stuff just arrived from California. I've been waiting for it for 5 years. So many of my loved ones have scoffed at the things that i've kept and spent so much money to keep in storage all this time. They've made me feel silly and petty to be so attached. I got this even from my parents who barely have a square inch of space left in their house because of all the myriad stuff they've collected over the years. The same parents who have a standing contract with a own shipping company because they have been known to purchase and import so many large items in such quantities that they cannot just send them back as checked bags like everyone else.

Why did i keep it all? Partially because from the time i made the decision to move across the country I have never had time to sort through all of what i wanted and what i didn't and it took me this long to be sure i was sparing the expense of shipping things destined for the Goodwill pile. Still I seem to have accidentally thrown out some treasures such as my lovely caran d'ache watercolor pencils. Other things broke in transit such as the windshield glass covered egg i once made for my grandma. After much internal debate i decided to part with my nana's sewing machine. I loved and carted it around for many years but i'll probably never use it for sewing and maybe some one else will.

So now i have the pleasure of unpacking the boxes finally and seeing what it was that was so important to me to have invested so much time and money in keeping. There are books from my childhood. A Little Princess by frances hodgson burnett. It's worn and dog eared and i will probably buy my daughter a new copy someday. But if i were to die tomorrow she would go through these 35 boxes of stuff and would be able to piece together who i was. And maybe that's at the heart of it. I keep these things to remind me who i am. To provide a framework to hang my personality on. It occurs to me that if i need a framework then i must consider myself quite weak. Can't i stand on my own the way everyone else seems to? Well, maybe not. I blame a shoddy memory but it's also that i've had an exorbitant life- how could anyone be expected to remember all the things i've done and seen without some touchstones?

This morning I opened my kitchen cabinet and my cups were there, looking down at me. The cups I chose. My cups. They are the right size. Their handles fit my hands. They are not the random cups i've been living with all this time. My cups, my stuff- these are things that make a home a home. This is why hotels are nice but they are not home.