Gaining while losing
I have gained and lost perspective so many times in the past two months it is hard to know which way is forward and which way is back. Rudy or we have come to know him around here as #STFURudy because of the comments – “Boy, Tin is going to have a hard time adjusting to this smaller place” to “Man, you better be glad you’re selling this place and getting out.” Then there was the new guy and he also got the #STFU hashtag but he was helping me move so I didn’t respond. “Are you selling? How could you sell this place? Do you realize 8 people could live here – this place is huge? How will you live in this small apartment?” #STFUMovingGuy.
I swear if I weren’t so weary I would laugh or cry or both, but there is still packing to be done.
PACKING BOXES
For weeks she’d worked on the packing up of boxes,
delighting at first in the careful ordering of books,
hidden gems rediscovered, but as the days wore on
and the piles rose ever higher,
she doubted she could stem the flood of objects,
endless stuff,
remembered plans that never happened,
chapters opened but long since reached The End,
and even as she worked, furiously,
to cram down objects, dreams, and messed up memories,
she feared it wasn’t possible
to pack up a life,
stacked neatly into boxes then sealed and neatly labelled,
and craved the vastness of a
hold
to put it all away, contained and containable,
so the objects of her life could be moved and then:
unspill,
and stream out roudily,
untidily unstoppable,
dripping with memories,
teeming with the signs of a life lived openly,
lovingly,
the boxes
crammed with the
detritus of the mess we make
when we open up our hearts,
and live life without the labels.
~Joanna Paterson