'Go, go, go," said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.'
The last eighteen months have been a process of grieving, discarding, packing, storing, discarding more, packing again, shipping, unpacking, packing again, grieving, and now, finally and fully (and I hope for a longer period of time), unpacking everything I've chosen to keep with us. There's nothing like moving to give you a snapshot of life. It's very existential, very real. You get a blurry snapshot as you pack up, but mostly this is lost in the mayhem of getting out on time and trying to be ruthless while frequently failing (amidst disastrous thoughts of, "Just box it, you can sort it out at the other end"). Unpacking, later, with the very essence of things left is where the truth comes out. What did I keep and why? What would someone make of me from my things? I still kept too much, but I think I'm getting better at moving on from the past. These are only "things" after all, life is what I carry within me and my children within them. Whole seasons of your life can be contained in an envelope, or box, or one lamp. It's enough. However I have kept three ducks that have held my keys by my front door since I was a student, because it is useful to have some threads that stretch right the way through. This most recent move was my twenty second, of which the last three have been the hardest. I have carried my children with me for these, and not been able to change it for them nor give them a choice. Unpacking boxes provokes a bit of existential musing so here is mine. No matter how long we stay in any place, we are - literally - just passing through. Like Uta Hagen's counsel to have an 'element of costume' for your character on stage, perhaps all we really need with us is an 'element of home'. Not endless amounts of it. A reminder of who we are, how far we've come, how much we've got through, and how we've survived. What we treasure - whom we treasure - cannot be captured in a thing, whatever it represents for us. I can see clearly what I get rid of over and over again, and now remind myself not to buy it this time. Not to clog up the pipes with lots of new stuff which I know I'll have to discard when life moves us on. My heart has learned by force of circumstance to travel light. To know that I always carry my identity and my purpose within me, not around me. To have my heart set on pilgrimage, and not on settling down and staying put. To be willing to use the things of this world, without being engrossed by them. (Don't think I'm completely spartan! I've kept some of my Limoges, like Karen.) However, T.S. Eliot's bird is so right: 'Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.' I am treading lightly, looking ahead.
I don't want to miss the children.
Josie/Dec 17