Portaging

I’m standing in the basement early Saturday morning, watching a thin sheet of clear rain water creep across the basement floor.  While I packed as much as I could in plastic containers knowing my precious cargo would be waylaid, mooring in a basement for an indeterminate period of time before reaching its final destination, it is inevitable that some contents end up in cardboard boxes. I’ve been here before, paralyzed by impending destruction I feel powerless to avert.

This situation is top of mind in the past few weeks as countless people across the nation engulfed in hurricanes and fires are making these choices with a magnitude exponential to mine.  It’s the paralysis that consumes us, the need to wrest with split-second decisions about which possessions are most important. There is only time and space to carry the precious few. How is one to decide?

We become comfortable surrounded by our stuff, symbols of safety, security and stability.  Every item we choose to possess says something about who we are, what we do with our time, what is important to us, what inspires us.  Yet life is full of transformations asking us to shed our stuff.  Sometimes willfully and with great excitement, other times with resigned submission, bitter disappointment or hopeless incomprehension. 

Christina Baker Kline, the author of the current selection my book club is reading, “Orphan Train”, weaves into her story the history of the Wabanakis Indians who traveled across the land carrying their canoes and possessions from river to lake to sea.  As a people, they knew how to travel light. The transient characters in her present day story recount the choices they make:  “What did you choose to bring with you to the next place?  What did you leave behind?”   

As I prepared to move this summer I set the goal to thresh out only those pieces of clothing I wear, the dishes and cookware I actually use, the artwork I absolutely adore.  I found myself in a state of perpetual culling; multiple rounds of sorting up until the moment I locked the door behind me for the last time. What surprises me is this winnowing continues, even after the move.  Standing in the basement imagining the worst inches of rising water could wipe out, I go through the mental game of contemplating what I will choose to bring with me and what I will leave behind. Is this the universe telling me I have more to let go? 

Thankfully there are no casualties; he is outside in the torrential downpour assessing the condition of gutters and drains.  He quickly decides the tired sump pump is the culprit and in a heartbeat he and his plumber are replacing it with a turbo-charged model bringing newfound energy, upchucking with comforting regularity water laden with leaves and debris. I make myself useful by getting a pedicure and buying sandwiches.  I am grateful I have a partner who believes in playing to our strengths.

While this crisis never comes to fruition, I’m left pondering the questions:   “What do you choose to bring with you to the next place?  What do you leave behind?”   On the surface I’ve chosen to bring a wardrobe dominated by black shirts, kitchen cabinets full of white bakeware and Starbucks “You Are Here” mugs documenting our travel to cities across the globe, while leaving at the curb tattered furniture, broken appliances and electronics, paperwork documenting a past which no longer serves me.

But it’s about so much more than the stuff. I am changing homes, and entering into a new phase of life:  Freedom I haven’t seen in over twenty years.  I leave behind the overwhelming responsibility of single-parenthood, the pressures of being the sole breadwinner, the tether to the nest, the solace of my screened-in porch, the full expression of my onlyness. I bring with me my unwavering love for my boys, wisdom and patience to guide them from a new vantage point, worry for their safety and wellbeing, the means and travel companion to sate my wanderlust, the skills and desire to be a good partner. 

As we move from place to place it’s inevitable that we will leave behind some cherished gifts we wish we could take with us, and bring with us some worn baggage we wish we could leave behind. There is one constant; however:  We always bring with us our true selves.  And if we believe we possess the power and resilience to adapt to new situations and make everything new again we can be happy wherever we are.