Surely in some ethics or philosophy class I have pondered this question. Tonight it was a good thing. It was not a phyiscal fire persay and no one was physically injured. I spoke with my mother yesterday who informed me that I should come by to pick up few things. She said she would swing them by on Thursday. Oh and by the way they were moving. WHAT?
OK so I got over the initial shock and said OK I will be here on Thursday.
I get a call today saying that I should really come by TODAY. OK I say, I will be by after my late softball game. I get there to pick up a couple of boxes and find out that she has not packed most of the stuff oh and by the way they need to be out by 6 tomorrow morning. So if I want anything like my great grandmothers CHINA I should pack it up now. By the way it was 10 pm when I got there.
I grabbed what I could and threw what I could of my childhood into a few boxes. I drove home and the good Frater came back with me to save what I could of my childhood stuff. Baby pictures, check! Graduation stuff, check! Great grandmothers china from Hungry, check! Christing cup, check! It is now 1 am and I am still stunned.
I have always joked that if you could not carry it in a duffle bag you did not need it. I had always implied that your parents would be hanging on the rest.
I am trying to understand this whole thing. I am trying to not make it about my loss but right now I do not have a good grasp on that and I am downright pissed. This whole thing is fucked up and confusing. I love her but I am angry and pissed.
4 comments:
At one point, I condensed 32 years of my life into eight boxes and left them at my father's house before I moved to Europe. My father developed Alzheimer's before he retired. His girlfriend/commom-law wife helped him pack up and move. Neither he, nor the girlfriend, nor anyone else remembers seeing my boxes.
I was reminded of the stories my mother and grandmother and other German relatives told of losing everything they owned in night-time bombing raids.
Poof! Gone! That's how quickly we can be separated from our possessions. Truly, the only things we really possess are what we carry inside.
By the way: what brand of Hungarian porcelain is it? Some of that old stuff is pretty valuable these days.
I have all my occult supplies with this small hand crafted case of wood with the american flag on top. The spirits gave it to me through someone else when I was looking for a portable container. It doesn't include my books and tarot cards, so they'd burn, but I'd slap my laptop on top of that case (well under, since the top of the case is curved) and skedaddle. Pretty much my entire life is on that laptop. I can replace the books. I have some fiction books, particular illustrative ones for symbolic work (Star Wars and Star Trek are really good for that) and it'd suck to replace them, but they're replacable.
Oddly enough the bombing raids did come to mind last night. It was like it was just set ablaze.
The china is actually from occupied Japan. My grandfather brought it back for his mother - who was Hungarian. I suppose when I have more mind I will check into the mark more.
As humans, I think we go through phases; the "but I need all 9 thousand, named stuffed animals on my bed, or I won't be able to sleep" phase, the "I don't need anything but a song" phase (because, as you said, someone else is curator of the treasures), the curator phase, and finally, the leaving behind the treasures phase. I think it's the life-long process of absorbing into ourselves, the outward cues of whom we hope to be. We may cope with losing bits of our past and future selves due to fire or immigration, alzheimers, or the anger of others, but it creates a hole.
Don't forget to tell the story of the china, when you use it!
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