I'm packing, again, a house full of memories.
Not so many pictures to take down this time, of course- we're in a rental.
Last time I moved, I culled our belongings. We had so much stuff- a two storey house full, plus a double garage. My husband was a hoarder....
I've never been.
The older I've gotten, the less attached to material possessions I've become. I'm not the type to keep my wedding dress, or the sugar figures form the top of my wedding cake. I haven't kept my son's umbilical cord, nor his first hospital blanket.
I keep some things... but only tiny mementos of each event. A tiara from my hen's night. My wedding ring, and the invites we had printed. My son's first tiny outfit. My daughter's tiny hospital band.
But even if I were to lose these things, it wouldn't be a terrible tragedy. I would mourn the loss of them, but the power in them comes from the memories they invoke.
And memories are not things that are so easily taken away.
So as I pack, again, this time, I'm letting go of even more stuff. We keep only what is beautiful, functional, useful or necessary. Five months we've been in this house- if I haven't looked at, looked for, or thought of an object since we have moved here, it can go.
And I am getting rid of stuff at an alarming rate. Old books and CD's, out of fashion clothes and unplayed-with toys. Boxes of stale, musty linen that I know I will never use.
It's a Buddhist concept, isn't it? Letting go of the attachment to material things, which only bring suffering.
I'm beginning to see the truth in this. Memories, they bring me comfort, but they feel light and comfortable.
All this stuff, it brings thoughts unbidden... it's just weighing me down.
***
Moving unsettles my soul. Packing drags up memories that I would rather stay hidden.
But sometimes... you find little treasures.
Like this. I'd forgotten about it until it turned up in my son's room. Unfortunately, I don't have the date for it... but I can tell you Tony and I found it in the comics section of the Sunday Telegraph, and were shocked into laughter, when I was just 8 weeks pregnant with our first child.
Click to embiggen.
Bizarre, yes? We took it as a sign that things were meant to be.
Maybe we were right.
Maybe not.