fragile
Bob and I spent another weekend packing. We're coming down to about three weeks from the actual move date and are now picking up our pace with the preparations. We're also coming to realize that, in the long run, we probably needed the extra months of struggles with a bad contractor at the new apartment in order to unearth ourselves from 11 sedentary years in Brooklyn (emotional and monetary strains of the renovations aside).
Now, boxes are beginning to stack up in the spare room, marked with "Fragile" labels and a color-coded system indicating which room they should land in when they arrive at the new apartment. We already went through much of the difficult, sentimental sorting of memories as we prepared for the two previous side-walk sales and trips to Bob's sister's home for storage, and are now packing things that we care most about, use regularly and look forward to having in the new apartment, like our china, books, photographs, DVDs, the few choice decorative pieces and Christmas Ornaments. The process is now less about letting go and more about preparing to move forward.
Still, here and there, we find a box that has yet to be sorted through. Yesterday I found the box of stuff from the 13 years I spent in the Jesuits, a Catholic religious order of priests. There were notes from seminary classes, Jesuit publications, letters from my former students, the pewter chalice, plate and candlesticks I had made when I was ordained, and even some fortune cookie fortunes that were too good to throw away at the time. This stuff took up three 24-by-18-inch boxes when I moved from Berkeley to New York to begin art school and my first assignment as a priest at Francis Xavier parish in Chelsea. Three boxes were whittled down to two when I took my leave of absence from the Jesuits and moved in with Bob, then one box when he and I moved from the East Village to Brooklyn.
Last evening I sifted through that box of stuff once again. I tossed out some matchbooks and magazine clippings that no longer had any significance for me and recycled a stack of my ordination invitations (keeping only one or two). I then repacked into one shoe box the letters from former students and only the seminary notes that had great doodles in the margins. Then I took the chalice, plate, candlesticks, and the accompanying liturgical linens and accessories, and packed them carefully into a separate box. Being a little superstitious about throwing away good fortune, I stuffed the fortune cookie fortunes between the sheets of bubble wrap, before sealing the box and writing the address of Francis Xavier Church on the outside.
And then, even though everything inside was made of pewter, cloth or paper, I put a "fragile" sticker on one side of the box, ready to send it off like a basket down the Nile for someone else to find it among the reeds.
Now, boxes are beginning to stack up in the spare room, marked with "Fragile" labels and a color-coded system indicating which room they should land in when they arrive at the new apartment. We already went through much of the difficult, sentimental sorting of memories as we prepared for the two previous side-walk sales and trips to Bob's sister's home for storage, and are now packing things that we care most about, use regularly and look forward to having in the new apartment, like our china, books, photographs, DVDs, the few choice decorative pieces and Christmas Ornaments. The process is now less about letting go and more about preparing to move forward.
Still, here and there, we find a box that has yet to be sorted through. Yesterday I found the box of stuff from the 13 years I spent in the Jesuits, a Catholic religious order of priests. There were notes from seminary classes, Jesuit publications, letters from my former students, the pewter chalice, plate and candlesticks I had made when I was ordained, and even some fortune cookie fortunes that were too good to throw away at the time. This stuff took up three 24-by-18-inch boxes when I moved from Berkeley to New York to begin art school and my first assignment as a priest at Francis Xavier parish in Chelsea. Three boxes were whittled down to two when I took my leave of absence from the Jesuits and moved in with Bob, then one box when he and I moved from the East Village to Brooklyn.
Last evening I sifted through that box of stuff once again. I tossed out some matchbooks and magazine clippings that no longer had any significance for me and recycled a stack of my ordination invitations (keeping only one or two). I then repacked into one shoe box the letters from former students and only the seminary notes that had great doodles in the margins. Then I took the chalice, plate, candlesticks, and the accompanying liturgical linens and accessories, and packed them carefully into a separate box. Being a little superstitious about throwing away good fortune, I stuffed the fortune cookie fortunes between the sheets of bubble wrap, before sealing the box and writing the address of Francis Xavier Church on the outside.
And then, even though everything inside was made of pewter, cloth or paper, I put a "fragile" sticker on one side of the box, ready to send it off like a basket down the Nile for someone else to find it among the reeds.
2 Comments:
Wow. Tough, but probably feels good to finally let go.
We're going into the next apartment a whole heck of a lot lighter, literally and emotionally.
And, as you well know, Dots, time changes things. 16 years was enough to help me come to these differently. The only real emotional connection, now, is from knowing that my parents helped pay for the chalice set. They didn't pick them out for me. I designed them myself; so their connection was only as loving patrons. And I think they'd prefer to know someone else was using the set as it was intended.
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