We are making another move this week. I am sitting in the living room of our latest little furnished rental surrounded by a tower of grey plastic totes housing the things we shuffle around the country with us in the name of coziness and freedom and ease.
The quilt my mom made for me from my college t-shirts. My juicer and fancy blender. Her toys. His bike.
It's interesting to think what really matters to you. Like really, really matters. Because when you distill down your worldly possessions to just a few totes worth, you start to see how our lives and our stuff tell a story about who we are.
Is it the story you want?
Maybe it's the vibrance and possibility of spring, but I'm feeling this divine urge to shed even more. To peel and push back and toss aside and tear down until all that is left at my feet is the essential, the sparkling.
If you looked at my life, you'd see stacks and stacks of scribbled journals bursting with stories and longings and ponderings. You'd say, "of course she was going to be a writer." And even though I have doubted it time and again, it was always there. I scrawled my first journal entry at 7 or 8 years old and haven't stopped.
What is stacked around you?
C just woke up and is singing Jingle Bells from bed. In May.
The things in her life are soft babies (none of those "hard faces" as she calls them), tiny little plastic people she sets up in a million different ways, doctoring tools and lots and lots of pretend food. She is a nurturer. She always has been.
And her stuff tells the story.
And one day I'll remind her.