Skip to main content

To the Core

Mari and I shall soon be moving to Tucson, to a lovely house on the West Side, halfway up a hill.  Because the house is less than half the size of the one we are in, we are seriously paring down.  We have been packrats, filling all the available space with sticks and stones and ancient bones, but they have been our sticks and stones, and we have loved them!  Some have been with us for decades; some we love because of the people associated with them, or because they remind us of places we have known.  "Vidar gave us that cup!"  "We watched them blow this wine glass in Lillehammer!"  "Mom gave this to me!", or "I gave this to Mom."  "Dad used that!"

We are moving to a city, to a place on earth, that we love.  It is a desert filled with life:  the Sonoran Desert.  It is Tucson!  This time, both of us are retired.  It is a time to change, so we are sorting:  "Sell this, toss that, give these away!  Keep these!"

It is a time for honesty, a time, not to continue on, but to re-imagine.  Hell is moving to a rest home with the last of your grandparents' walnut furniture.

At the same time, it becomes clear that we are--most of us--something unique.  There are things we will not discard.  There is no doubt that when we settle into our next house on the side of a ridge, that we will not appear to be standard issue.  Our realtor here, advising us, not how to pare down, but to "declutter", wants our home to appear like something from Better Homes and Gardens.  We are not "decluttering".  We are paring down to a kind of self-definition, and it is not standard issue.

It is painful, exhilarating, and clarifying.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard
1 comment
Read more

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

At the Last Game of Year 2017"

Just like in the Bigger Leagues: No balls and five strikes. Add caption "I suppose he had something in mind." "Lift it!  Lift your foot one inch!" "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go!" Faster than a speeding ball In the Hearts of His Countrymen There are body-parts that wear out, and mind-games that go, but Jerry's spirit is indominable.
Post a Comment
Read more