Change In Plans

Greetings from Bernardsville, New Jersey.

It is a rainy and cold Sunday. We made the long trek out to New Jersey from the city, visiting our old neighborhood and our storage space for the first time in a year.

It seems strange that we lived out here for nearly four years. As we drove, I recognized sights, and they resonated intellectually. Emotionally, though, they did not raise much of a response, except, “Did we really live here?” It seems like a long time ago.

Everywhere else we have lived, even for a short while, made a lasting impression, and evokes emotion around specific sounds, sights, smells. Not sure yet why this place does not.

Seeing all of our stuff - three storage units full of furniture, clothes, toys - evoked more emotion.

I was glad to find a pair of boots that I was looking for. It saved me from buying a new pair.

I laughed as India pulled another ten pairs of her shoes from boxes. She doesn’t like when I refer to her as Mrs. Marcos.

She was happy to find a photo exhibit she had been holding for a South African friend. Apparently, the exhibit is being displayed in Washington on November 1st, so if we hadn’t been able to find it, India’s life would have gotten a little complicated.

Mostly, though, I re-experienced the great feeling of liberation we had when we started our travels. Shedding all of our possessions, even temporarily, for the (relatively) unencumbered life on the open road was just great. I remember how excited and eager we were to get going. We locked the units, drove to the airport, and forgot about 95% of our possessions.

Now we are in rented-house limbo, so we don’t really need our furniture or most of our other stuff. When we move back to Cape Town in December, we will have to figure out what to ship, what to continue storing, and what to give away. My emotional response is “give it all away.”

At some point, though, we will own another house, and need things. In the meantime, I’m happy to know they are safe, dry, and there if we want them.

I hve been reading Bruce Chatwin’s book, “The Songlines”.  In part it is a travelogue of his time in the Australian Outback, trying to understand the role of Aboriginal culture in Australian society.  A big part of the book, though, is Chatwin’s debate with himself on the role of travel in human civilization.  From his own experiences, plus excerpts from anthropology, philosophy, and paleontology, he concludes (basically) on balance that mobility is the source of humanity’s ennobling characteristics.  When societies settle, they become warlike to their neighbors and repressive to their weaker elements.

The trip to the storage space goes directly to the root of the tension that Chatwin describes.  The act of putting our possessions in storage represents freedom and mobility.  The existence, and importance to us, of these things represents stability.  “Mobility vs. Stability” is the perpetual and unresolved conflict in India’s and my life together.  It is no wonder that we have been arguing nastily from the moment we arrived here. 

We have to hurry back to see They Might Be Giants in a family concert at NYU. The drummer’s daughter is in Lu’s class at the Blue School. I think we have swapped experiences for possessions for the last 16 months. Not a bad trade, but also possibly not sustainable.  More to come.