Monday, May 21, 2018

A Box to the Left




Packing central here. Movers will be here before I know it. Today I’m spending time figuring out which personal items to gather in the boxes that will go with us across country, and which to load onto the moving van.

How does one decide which photo albums are the most meaningful, which childhood drawings possess the most value? And please, is it even possible to sort through my 25+ writing journals? Laughing as I factor in which one I’d be most horrified if somehow it got tossed from the moving van and discovered by an innocent bystander. Imagining Joe Shmoe reading, eyes wide, about a character plotting murder, certain he’s stumbled upon something truly sinister. (Nope, Joe, just hashing out a novel.) I know what Joe’s really stumbled upon—a woman who couldn’t possibly sort the can’t-leave-it-behind important items from all the rest.

In the end, they’re all simply things. Stuff. Try as I might, I can’t shove memories—a lifetime—into a box. I can toy with collecting the sentimental, piling in special photographs, letters, and memorabilia,
as well as passports, medical papers, and school forms.

How do you respond when people ask you what you’d run back in to save if your house was on fire?

I’ve heard pets, photo albums, the Bible, as well as other poignant books. I’m creating a box of memories and it will fall short. It will be incomplete. It won’t make sense to most.

Love, nature walks, laughter, ugly cries, growth, deep and loyal affection—they don’t fit in a box. They exist somewhere else entirely. They’ll be going with me in the car alright because they’re stitched into my being—not to be lost or mistakenly read by some Joe Shmoe. The aforementioned—those are the workings of my life. They go with me everywhere—accessible at any given time.

*Be back sometime in June…on the road again.

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Taking Time

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