I wrote some time ago about stuff. As you know, George Carlin really said it all, that all we really need in this world is what we carry in our wallet.
As I ready all our worldly possessions for their transcontinental journey, I am reminded that this is all too true. I seem to have entered into a Jacob Marley existence and I’m having trouble shaking it. If you recall, Jacob Marley was Ebenezer Scrooge’s partner. When he died, he was burdened with the chains he had forged in life, made link by link and yard by yard in the afterlife.
I’m not dead yet, but I certainly know a thing or two about those chains I have been carrying around. When I came to Florida in 2004, everything I brought with me fit into the back half of my Windstar. Yesterday, the Ghost of Moving Future came to our house. He looked around and lo and behold, he figured we have 7,200 pounds of crap in the house.
That, friends and neighbors, is an awfully long chain we forged. It’s bad enough having to move it across town or across state. For some reason, and I don’t think I’m alone here, we don’t really question whether we need all the links in the chain. We simply get a bigger moving truck to cart it around and eventually, we’re making more than one trip with the 26-footer.
I certainly know this was the case in my last move. I got the biggest truck I could find, threw all my stuff in it from the three-piece house in Melboring, and lugged it all down here to Vero Beach. A year later, I packed it all up again and moved it to the island.
Sure, I edited here and there. A few books I didn’t want, even some clothing I rarely wore. A time or two I was too zealous, accidentally giving away the steak knives that matches all my cutlery. I just never had the heart to ask for them back.
But now, the moment of truth comes. It’s time to move everything all the way across the country. Every single pound costs money. And these chains are very, very heavy.
This put me into a bit of a tailspin a day or two ago. I wasn’t prepared for the sticker shock. It was a very large number. In fact, I don’t think the number would have fit in the moving truck I last rented.
Things looked pretty bleak around the old homestead. A dark cloud hovered over the housienda and I wasn’t even in Seattle.
I sat in the living room, pondering our plight. And then it occurred to me. It’s just freaking stuff. As I noted, most of this stuff didn’t even arrive here with me eight years ago. Somewhere in the middle of the night, it snuck in, made itself at home and lulled me into accepting it as my own.
So, the Great Pare Down of 2012 began. A little at first, and then it started full bore. Everything is being examined with a very critical eye. And you know, once you start to whittle things down, it gets to be pretty freeing.
For example, we were going to take these three Early American bookcases. These are old school bookcases, not the bolt it together type. Originally, it made sense to take them. But they are probably 100 pounds a piece and only cost $20 each at a garage sale. They are going to remain Florida residents.
The same is true of our sofa. Yes, even my coveted steamer trunk is finding a new home. Sure, I’ve hauled it from one side of Seattle to the other and all the way to Florida in the last 20 years, but really, all it does now is serve as a stand for the flat screen. It doesn’t really need to come all the way home to Seattle. I only paid $60 for it to begin with.
In many ways, this whole moving thing has become a great exercise in renewal. When you have to pay the freight you really start to figure out what is important to you. The size of the shipment is getting smaller by the moment and quite frankly, I’m pretty sure we can knock it down to under 4,000 pounds.
In the process, the chains are getting shorter, link by weighty link. If I didn’t know better, I would think that all the stuff in this house is quaking in fright right now, wondering if it’s next. I’m sure the hutch has already taken notice that the steamer trunk and bookcases have been given their pink slips. Can it be far behind?
Sure, it’s nice stuff. I will miss some of it, for a bit. Eventually, I won’t remember any of it, except when I look at a photo of our old homestead in Florida and catch a glimpse of something we left behind.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, though there will be more stuff in the future. It will slowly creep into my new digs in Seattle, make itself at home and before I know it, I have to rent another 26-footer to cart it to the next place. Once again, I will curse its existence, but yet I won’t leave it behind. Unless I move cross country again. And no, that will never happen.
Out on the Treasure Coast for a couple more days,
– Robb