The Ties that Bind
“It must feel like Christmas!”
This was the reaction many people had when they learned I finally set down after seven years adrift and was able to get my things out of storage late last summer. Opening all those boxes! All that unwrapping! All those surprises! All that was missing was a Hickory Farms cheese ball, Andy Williams crooning carols over a glass of Harveys Bristol Cream in front of a rotating fake fireplace log, and ecstatic visions of Mattel, Hasbro and Wham-O loot dancing in my sugarplum-addled brain.
But no, it was not like Christmas. First, it was hotter than Hades when I moved. Maybe Santa wears a Speedo in Samoa, but not here in chilblain Maine. Second, and speaking of Santa, he has the benefit of landing his sleigh on rooftops and chucking his cargo down chimneys. In my case — and especially in the case of my heroic family, who insisted on helping me move (it’s a Peavey thing) — there were only legs and arms and backs to transport my possessions out of one second-story dwelling into another. (And judging by my relations’ expressions midway through, they may be rethinking this family tradition.)
More to the point, being reunited with my belongings has been complicated. In fact, my first response once the bulk of the boxes had been emptied was, Whose shit is this? I wanted to get rid of everything — I felt buried by it all — but my friend Arlene told me to wait before deciding. She reminded me, “You have time now.”
When I left my home and marriage seven years ago, I took with me only what I could fit into the back of my MINI Cooper. For the first two years, I housesat, couch- and condo-surfed, and did short-term rentals. I glibly referred to myself as a 21st-century Ghandi: all I needed was a mat, a bowl and Wi-Fi. Living nowhere and having nothing suited me.
Well, that was easy to say, because I still half-owned a house where I could park all my worldly goods. When John and I finally divorced and he bought me out, the arrangement remained the same. By then, I was living in my room in the woods and had no space, or desire, for any of my/our things. But I also didn’t have to deal with them.
Then John, whose health had been failing, died, and the house — a sweet little 1920s bungalow where we’d lived together for 20 years — had to be emptied. The years since I’d left had been rugged, but the end of his life, during which I remained his primary carer, absolutely gutted me; the contents of the house felt like mere rubble. I wanted nothing.
That is, until I found the probate-appointed estate representative eyeing the antique, glass-fronted bookcase John and I purchased on one of our many junk-shopping expeditions. “Whaddaya want for that?” he asked in his Long Island accent. When I didn’t answer, he said, “I’ll give ya a hundred bucks.”
That’s all it took. Suddenly, every doodad and dishtowel was precious. Items that had been destined for Goodwill or the dump got shoved over into the “keep” pile: my ’90s cassettes (I’m sure I’ll listen to them again); the Maine team’s 1994 Slam Nationals trophy (historic!); my childhood dance costumes. Treasures all!
OK, a side note: I am mocking myself. See, I wrote and, for six years, performed a one-woman show titled My Mother’s Clothes Are Not My Mother in which I am faced with the task of emptying my mom’s condo after she died. I sniffed dismissively at the “treasures” she’d held onto — her 1934 prom dress, the Polynesian tiki hors d’oeuvre platter, a mountain of milk glass — followed by a resounding cry of “Chuck it!” People who saw my show came to regard me as some sort of mourners’ Marie Kondo. Of course, “letting go” is easy when it’s someone else’s stuff.
For my things,I rented a 5-by-10-foot storage locker and, in a blur of emotion and exhaustion, crammed it with whatever I could fit and gave away the rest. I think ruts remain in Baxter Boulevard from the endless trips I made from East Deering to Maine Needs’ former location at USM.
And I continue to beat a path to their door as I now sift through the mishmash of artifacts from my previous lives, possessions of former selves I no longer know. Maybe that’s why letting go has grown easier.
I think back to my younger self and how the bounty of Christmas morning — Creepy Crawlers! Easy Bake Ovens! Silly Putty! — was only about more. For greedy children and others of their ilk, despite how much want there is in the world, more will never be enough. And we know where that leads. We need only to look to our era’s version of Jacob Marley. He’ll be the bloated soul roaming the earth with a gilded toilet seat around his neck.
Elizabeth Peavey comes a-wassailing here each month.
