I've started packing, and this time I've done something I never did before: I took the pictures down first.
I'm hoping to take as many of my pictures to England as I can, so I took them down to see if I could fit them in a suitcase. The good news is that I probably can -- although I have yet to wrap each of them in bubble wrap (of which I have bought an enormous roll). But I think taking them down so early was a mistake.
I've come a long way in my devotion to things. I've written before about how my dominant anxiety when I first saw Snow White, at some young age, was about the red bundle she has when she enters the woods, but loses by the time she's fleeing through it. Presumably that's the only thing she had from her old life, and a new happy life with a prince in castle, I thought, can't quite make up for the total loss of the old one. (I now recognize, of course, the classic maturity themes -- of course to have adulthood you must lose childhood -- but that particular move was a problem for me in my own adolescence too.)
I used to be an obsessive keeper. I kept the foil off of shiny candies, a walnut our cat had played with, tiny figurines and every toy from a MacDonald's Happy Meal. My room was, for much of my childhood, covered in things, the smaller the better. There came a point, though, when the things -- and the saving -- became more oppressive than they were comforting. I realized I had to pare them down, or at least put them in boxes. And I had to stop saving things.
So I did, mostly. I've stopped saving mementos of every occasion, and when I do save them, I make sure they have a use or an expiration date, for all but a very well-considered few. I no longer buy or keep many things that exist purely for decorative value. And although I'm anxious about packing for this move, as always, I actually think I've managed to pare down my things to an acceptable level. I have sixteen boxes of books, yes, but books are useful (and I used the smallest boxes I could). I've thrown out or given away lots of things I really enjoyed while I had them, but which have served their turn -- things that do have good memories attached to them, but don't need to be kept purely for the sake of those memories. I know I need to trust my memory to preserve the past all by itself. If I let things do it for me, I'll soon be overrun with them, and the past will suffocate me.
But all that doesn't mean I really want to live like an ascetic, and the pictures on the walls -- all of them meaningful, most of them gifts from people that are important to me or pictures of those same people -- are what make me feel at home in the place where I am. I've moved eleven times since 1998, and every time it hasn't felt like home until I got pictures up on the walls. And now that I've taken them down, it feels, too soon, as if I have no home. That's why I'm so interested in taking them, of course -- my new home is with Nick, in Penkhull, Stoke on Trent, and I want to show myself as soon as possible that I really live there, that we really have a home. But having taken them down already from here has made me feel sadder than I need to feel, and more anxious.
So I think I might put them back up for the next few days. It makes sense, anyway -- I can't really pack my suitcases until the last minute, even though I want to (because it's the most difficult part and I want it out of the way). I have come a long way from obsessive saving and enshrining, but that doesn't mean I have to live with bare walls.
I'm hoping to take as many of my pictures to England as I can, so I took them down to see if I could fit them in a suitcase. The good news is that I probably can -- although I have yet to wrap each of them in bubble wrap (of which I have bought an enormous roll). But I think taking them down so early was a mistake.
I've come a long way in my devotion to things. I've written before about how my dominant anxiety when I first saw Snow White, at some young age, was about the red bundle she has when she enters the woods, but loses by the time she's fleeing through it. Presumably that's the only thing she had from her old life, and a new happy life with a prince in castle, I thought, can't quite make up for the total loss of the old one. (I now recognize, of course, the classic maturity themes -- of course to have adulthood you must lose childhood -- but that particular move was a problem for me in my own adolescence too.)
I used to be an obsessive keeper. I kept the foil off of shiny candies, a walnut our cat had played with, tiny figurines and every toy from a MacDonald's Happy Meal. My room was, for much of my childhood, covered in things, the smaller the better. There came a point, though, when the things -- and the saving -- became more oppressive than they were comforting. I realized I had to pare them down, or at least put them in boxes. And I had to stop saving things.
So I did, mostly. I've stopped saving mementos of every occasion, and when I do save them, I make sure they have a use or an expiration date, for all but a very well-considered few. I no longer buy or keep many things that exist purely for decorative value. And although I'm anxious about packing for this move, as always, I actually think I've managed to pare down my things to an acceptable level. I have sixteen boxes of books, yes, but books are useful (and I used the smallest boxes I could). I've thrown out or given away lots of things I really enjoyed while I had them, but which have served their turn -- things that do have good memories attached to them, but don't need to be kept purely for the sake of those memories. I know I need to trust my memory to preserve the past all by itself. If I let things do it for me, I'll soon be overrun with them, and the past will suffocate me.
But all that doesn't mean I really want to live like an ascetic, and the pictures on the walls -- all of them meaningful, most of them gifts from people that are important to me or pictures of those same people -- are what make me feel at home in the place where I am. I've moved eleven times since 1998, and every time it hasn't felt like home until I got pictures up on the walls. And now that I've taken them down, it feels, too soon, as if I have no home. That's why I'm so interested in taking them, of course -- my new home is with Nick, in Penkhull, Stoke on Trent, and I want to show myself as soon as possible that I really live there, that we really have a home. But having taken them down already from here has made me feel sadder than I need to feel, and more anxious.
So I think I might put them back up for the next few days. It makes sense, anyway -- I can't really pack my suitcases until the last minute, even though I want to (because it's the most difficult part and I want it out of the way). I have come a long way from obsessive saving and enshrining, but that doesn't mean I have to live with bare walls.
I've also moved every year since '97! I've broken the mold by staying put in our place here in Asheville for 1.5 yrs.
Put at least some of the pictures back up! Friends, Family, and Happy Places make for a happy home (and a happy Ginny). =D