Living Dangerously

I know that I said I need a break, but I just don't know how to quit you.

I'm writing this on stolen internet. I just had to tell someone, the guilt was eating me alive.

I had dinner tonight with a friend who has really been my best friend here in North Carolina. It breaks my heart to have to leave her. She's one of those awesome women who totally accepts me the way that I am, flaws and all. I love to be around her, we have great conversation, she always makes me think (I can't pay her a higher compliment than that), and she has a wicked sense of humor.

We stayed far too late, the Boy was hellishly tired, he's conked out in bed right now and I'm wired up and can't sleep.

We packed all day. All. Day.

Everything we own is in boxes. Well, for the most part...there are those odds and ends, the true detritus of our lives, the things that don't go in boxes until the very last minute before you drive away. I took down all of our pictures, posters, calenders, curtains, cards, postcards, and post-it notes. The walls are bare and echoey without them...and the windows are all naked and bright. It's this part of moving that I hate most...when you're still in what used to be your home but it doesn't feel like home any more.

I was chatting with another friend over some delicious Indian food last night. She's preparing to move in the Fall and we were talking about the contents of those boxes. You know the ones. The ones we all have. Those boxes that we seldom delve into but we can't bear to throw away. Her's are piled up in her attic, mine were in the top of the Boy's closet.

We got to talking about those boxes because she was saying that she hadn't even been up in the attic for years, that she knew that she should throw them away, but that she just couldn't bring herself to do it. And I found myself saying something that I never thought that I would say. Ever.

I started to talk about the significance of the things we keep.

I've never wanted to leave things behind. I like the idea, somehow, of leaving this earth and leaving no trace, no trail, no sign that M was ever HERE. I don't generally hold on to things. I hate the clutter, and I have a strong affinity for open spaces.

And yet. Here I was talking about the significance of the things we keep.

The fact remains that the things that we choose to keep, especially in this disposable society of ours, are far more significant than the things we use. We give them space, time, and frequently we give them energy. Those things, the detritus of our life here, they tell the story--not of what we DID, but of who we became. And someday, someone will come along who will pick up something and through that inanimate thing they will know something of us. Of me.

Whimsy keeps cat whiskers, among other things. I confess I have a couple too; long, slender white ones from Leike and short wispy gray ones from Agnes. They are indeed, imbued with their own magic. But I leave mine in books that I favor.

Chris keeps shirts. T-shirts, polos, button downs, guayabaras, the man can't seem to throw away a shirt. I asked him to purge his closet and he parts with 4 shirts. FOUR. Out of 50, or more.

He and I were talking today about how everyone just seems to collect certain things around themselves. He used the example of my mom who has a lot of bowls. We tease her and say that she never met a bowl she didn't like. He helped a classmate move and she had a lot of bags, all kinds of bags, bags everywhere.

Me? I have a lot of books. Some that I've never read, some that I've read many, many times. Sometimes I have more than one copy of the same book. Just know, I have my reasons.

I'm not the kind of mom that has scrapbooked my son's life. We threw away his hospital bracelets, all of the cards that people gave us before his birth are in one big manila envelope. The pictures are backed up on CD, but not printed out, and I've nothing cutesy saved up for him. I haven't meticulously documented his development.

But I can still remember the books I read when I was pregnant with him. I remember (and have) the books I read and studied when Chris and I were dating. I know which books I took on our honeymoon. I know what I was reading when I made that long, painful move from Seattle to Georgia (for grad school). And I know what I read immediately after the Boy's birth.

Certain books I associate with certain people whom I love. Lord of the Rings for Whimsy and Samwise. The Stories of Isaac Babel for EAK. The Asher Lev books for my sister. Desirable Daughters for my mother. Persuasion for Kristin. Harry Potter for Chris (he's read most of them aloud to me and when I reread them, I still hear his voice in my head).

My shelves tell the story of how a small girl, from a small town, grew up. Went to school, learned a lot, fell in love, got married, traveled a bit, had a baby, and learned some more. I box up my books for a move and I travel back to the different versions of myself; I pick up and flip through the books that were seminal in my own personal history and I see these flashes of where I was and who I was when I read them. I box up the books that I have yet to read and I wonder where I'll be when I finally pull them down and steep myself in them. I wonder how I'll be different when I come out the other side.

I've never been a great journal writer. I just can't bring myself to document the inanity of my daily life--it's one of the many ironies of my life that I now keep a blog. I guess that I've never felt the need to write everything down. The story of my life has already been written, you just have to read the books that I keep.