Processing the new blog post by writer-friend Terry Wolverton, which deals with consumerism and its effect on our lives, I am filled with the usual conflicting guilt, upset and frustration I always feel as an American with a Liberal Arts education. First let me say: Terry is an excellent writer. Always has been--in most forms. She is also an excellent person. (However, I might be saying that because the way she thinks is familiar...we are contemporaries in background experience and time...our spiritual wanderings (adventures) are different in detail but resound in similarity.) Our concerns mirror each other as we flow through the West. So, with that confession, the fact remains: Terry is an excellent writer.
Now, the issues raised in her blog...hmmm. I write this as I peer around my younger sister's childhood bedroom. She moved all of her stored "stuff" so I might move back in--refugee from the California financial debacle and runaway from all that New England means--now back--trying to find a new life amid the bloods. My sister wasn't happy with the move. Not only do I upset the careful balancing act that is my family, her stuff doesn't have a permanent home anymore. She, too, is looking for a new job in this terrible economy. She has a house that is on the market; she has a new car and a newer boyfriend and like me wants to move in closer to the aging parental units. If the delicate balance of unemployment insurance, relationship angst, sale of the house gets tipped, I am occupying "her space". This reality of "stuff" isn't funny. It has caused an unique "riff" in our reality. The balance of "where to stuff the stuff" vs. "where to stuff myself/ my life" vs. "where to stuff the feelings of owing the folks/the family" vs. "what IS my life at this moment, anyway" makes for a warzone in my head. (And I am sure, hers, too.)
When I left the West Coast I packed my "most important things" into seven boxes and mailed them home. I carried my laptop and one suitcase. I figured (a year and a half ago) that whatever I had to leave (or give away) was replaceable. (How many people say the same thing after a devastating wildfire or a hurricane?) As I've always been employed, making more money and getting more "stuff" seemed like a reasonable assumption. Deciding what constituted "important things" was more problematic.
Clothing for the East Coast Teacher is quite different from clothing for the West Coast Teacher. I'm not just talking "no jeans"...I'm speaking of boots, sweaters, blazers and heavier underwear. I'm mentioning investing in coats for three seasons, hats that don't make one look like a Gangsta, gloves and heavy socks. Almost nothing I brought back was of use in the first few months I was back. Since I am the shortest of anybody in my family--and I mean ANYBODY--and fall in the middle of the weight/width line--there were few handmedowns that were appropriate. Much of my unemployment funds went into second hand and consignment shopping sprees. (Luckily New England--at least this part of MA--is highly forgiving when it comes to the wardrobes of its educators. Conservative, bland, practical--yes. Unisex--often. Heavy--always. But, forgiving.) Luckily the brands in the thrift stores followed classic Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean lines. However, the search for the best boots became a problem.
I'd given up my drums and guitars to various friends in L.A. and the OC. So too my paints and brushes; canvases; my truck; my kayaks; my backpacking equipment. I'd donated my board shorts and Hawaiian shirts; my adventure shoes and hiking boots; my slashed designer jeans and most of my leather jackets. (I kept a couple...thank God!) All of my books--except copies of those I'd written--were given away, too. My music, my dvds, my cds, my electronics--all of it vamoosed. While this wasn't awfully tragic, somehow it stung a bit. I mean, these accoutrements made me who I was in the world....Defined me to the people I'd known for three decades...identified me to strangers. I knew I wasn't "what I owned", but "what I owned" helped me maneuver through this life. Helped me hold on and move forward.
When I returned to 88 Maple Street, it was to a house full of the entire family's "stuff". Decades away, I hadn't witnessed the "storage of things" that took place. Even as family members moved out and then back in and then out again, "stuff" remained. My Dad comes from the Great Depression. He has always "stored stuff"--repairing even the smallest broken item, to be used until it breaks down its very molecules and blows away. There wasn't a lot of room for my seven boxes.
Perhaps I didn't need even seven. I mean, the cheap guitar which replaced my three great guitars in CA, isn't a necessity--though it calms me and gives me some hope...my many pairs of sneakers and "adventure shoes" perhaps are excessive--though I've always had sore feet and have always sought "the perfect shoe" that could be worn through an entire day and night--now I had to add snow and sleet to the equation. So, this was an experiment in haberdashery that wasn't likely to go away. (I'm still searching for the perfect shoe/boot--one that is supremely comfortable, flat, supportive but cushy, rugged yet refined. I take all suggestions...) The point is, aside from shoes, and the books that I began to accumulate (another tool of the trade that isn't going to go away...I'm an English Teacher and a writer, for God's sakes...), I am not a creature of "collections".
But, my "stuff" began to fill the room around me. At 56, as I gaze about these walls, to know that almost everything I own (except for my kayak--a Christmas gift from my sister--and my 1999 Subaru--a gift from my parents) resides here, with me, is a bit disturbing. I am thrown back to being a child--or a teen--wondering when I would ever graduate out of this house and begin a life with better clothes, powerful wheels, any and all paints that I desired so I might create the world that I really saw, and excellent space of my own where no one questioned my life. At 56, as I gaze about these walls, I am embarrassed and humbled...thank God my family has room for me and my seven boxes. Thank God that however unsuccessful they may think I am, mostly they keep it to themselves. They watch me succeed in the myriad details of establishing one's new life back "home" after 35 years away. They see I'm not really a slacker. They understand that "back there" I had been fully an adult--fully engaged--fully useful and successful and maybe even dynamic. But in this time-warp and failing economy--I am back in awkwardsville. Like so much "stuff" which has been stored in this house and often "forgotten", perhaps life has "stored" me...hmmm.
Seven boxes. (Maybe now eight...), a cheap guitar, an old car and a kayak...it is hard to not measure one's life through one's "stuff". It's hard not to want more "stuff"--because one is often judged by one's "stuff". Is this the greater schooling? Is it because I am deemed "ready" to be challenged, yet again, by a Universe, to go beyond an identity created by "things"? Or more: an identity that the mainstream society only comprehends via "stuff"? Am I strong enough to actually believe what I have studied and chased down for so long? That: we are more.
So much more.
We are, as Shakespeare has said, the stuff the Stars are made of...
I wonder.
Now, the issues raised in her blog...hmmm. I write this as I peer around my younger sister's childhood bedroom. She moved all of her stored "stuff" so I might move back in--refugee from the California financial debacle and runaway from all that New England means--now back--trying to find a new life amid the bloods. My sister wasn't happy with the move. Not only do I upset the careful balancing act that is my family, her stuff doesn't have a permanent home anymore. She, too, is looking for a new job in this terrible economy. She has a house that is on the market; she has a new car and a newer boyfriend and like me wants to move in closer to the aging parental units. If the delicate balance of unemployment insurance, relationship angst, sale of the house gets tipped, I am occupying "her space". This reality of "stuff" isn't funny. It has caused an unique "riff" in our reality. The balance of "where to stuff the stuff" vs. "where to stuff myself/ my life" vs. "where to stuff the feelings of owing the folks/the family" vs. "what IS my life at this moment, anyway" makes for a warzone in my head. (And I am sure, hers, too.)
When I left the West Coast I packed my "most important things" into seven boxes and mailed them home. I carried my laptop and one suitcase. I figured (a year and a half ago) that whatever I had to leave (or give away) was replaceable. (How many people say the same thing after a devastating wildfire or a hurricane?) As I've always been employed, making more money and getting more "stuff" seemed like a reasonable assumption. Deciding what constituted "important things" was more problematic.
Clothing for the East Coast Teacher is quite different from clothing for the West Coast Teacher. I'm not just talking "no jeans"...I'm speaking of boots, sweaters, blazers and heavier underwear. I'm mentioning investing in coats for three seasons, hats that don't make one look like a Gangsta, gloves and heavy socks. Almost nothing I brought back was of use in the first few months I was back. Since I am the shortest of anybody in my family--and I mean ANYBODY--and fall in the middle of the weight/width line--there were few handmedowns that were appropriate. Much of my unemployment funds went into second hand and consignment shopping sprees. (Luckily New England--at least this part of MA--is highly forgiving when it comes to the wardrobes of its educators. Conservative, bland, practical--yes. Unisex--often. Heavy--always. But, forgiving.) Luckily the brands in the thrift stores followed classic Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean lines. However, the search for the best boots became a problem.
I'd given up my drums and guitars to various friends in L.A. and the OC. So too my paints and brushes; canvases; my truck; my kayaks; my backpacking equipment. I'd donated my board shorts and Hawaiian shirts; my adventure shoes and hiking boots; my slashed designer jeans and most of my leather jackets. (I kept a couple...thank God!) All of my books--except copies of those I'd written--were given away, too. My music, my dvds, my cds, my electronics--all of it vamoosed. While this wasn't awfully tragic, somehow it stung a bit. I mean, these accoutrements made me who I was in the world....Defined me to the people I'd known for three decades...identified me to strangers. I knew I wasn't "what I owned", but "what I owned" helped me maneuver through this life. Helped me hold on and move forward.
When I returned to 88 Maple Street, it was to a house full of the entire family's "stuff". Decades away, I hadn't witnessed the "storage of things" that took place. Even as family members moved out and then back in and then out again, "stuff" remained. My Dad comes from the Great Depression. He has always "stored stuff"--repairing even the smallest broken item, to be used until it breaks down its very molecules and blows away. There wasn't a lot of room for my seven boxes.
Perhaps I didn't need even seven. I mean, the cheap guitar which replaced my three great guitars in CA, isn't a necessity--though it calms me and gives me some hope...my many pairs of sneakers and "adventure shoes" perhaps are excessive--though I've always had sore feet and have always sought "the perfect shoe" that could be worn through an entire day and night--now I had to add snow and sleet to the equation. So, this was an experiment in haberdashery that wasn't likely to go away. (I'm still searching for the perfect shoe/boot--one that is supremely comfortable, flat, supportive but cushy, rugged yet refined. I take all suggestions...) The point is, aside from shoes, and the books that I began to accumulate (another tool of the trade that isn't going to go away...I'm an English Teacher and a writer, for God's sakes...), I am not a creature of "collections".
But, my "stuff" began to fill the room around me. At 56, as I gaze about these walls, to know that almost everything I own (except for my kayak--a Christmas gift from my sister--and my 1999 Subaru--a gift from my parents) resides here, with me, is a bit disturbing. I am thrown back to being a child--or a teen--wondering when I would ever graduate out of this house and begin a life with better clothes, powerful wheels, any and all paints that I desired so I might create the world that I really saw, and excellent space of my own where no one questioned my life. At 56, as I gaze about these walls, I am embarrassed and humbled...thank God my family has room for me and my seven boxes. Thank God that however unsuccessful they may think I am, mostly they keep it to themselves. They watch me succeed in the myriad details of establishing one's new life back "home" after 35 years away. They see I'm not really a slacker. They understand that "back there" I had been fully an adult--fully engaged--fully useful and successful and maybe even dynamic. But in this time-warp and failing economy--I am back in awkwardsville. Like so much "stuff" which has been stored in this house and often "forgotten", perhaps life has "stored" me...hmmm.
Seven boxes. (Maybe now eight...), a cheap guitar, an old car and a kayak...it is hard to not measure one's life through one's "stuff". It's hard not to want more "stuff"--because one is often judged by one's "stuff". Is this the greater schooling? Is it because I am deemed "ready" to be challenged, yet again, by a Universe, to go beyond an identity created by "things"? Or more: an identity that the mainstream society only comprehends via "stuff"? Am I strong enough to actually believe what I have studied and chased down for so long? That: we are more.
So much more.
We are, as Shakespeare has said, the stuff the Stars are made of...
I wonder.
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