Twenty-Five Days

The boxes continue to pile up in front of the fireplace. Pretty soon I'll have to figure out where to start new stacks.

Five copy paper boxes contain books, and I don't think I have half the books packed yet. And that's after I've sorted through them and filled a couple of bags to donate to the library and others. As a reader, I can't just throw them away. But I don't need to take them all with me. Fortunately, a branch of the Alexandria Library is about the same distance from my new home as the Norwalk Public Library is from my current one.

Three archive boxes hold genealogy files, family photos, and other family history artifacts. The files are the most organized they've been since I started working on the family history over 30 years ago. In a large part that's due to the genealogy group at church. That's something else to look for once I get settled.

Yarn and crochet thread fill a 17 gallon plastic bin. Some is left over from past projects--prayer shawls, hats, scarves, mittens, Christmas presents--some is in new skeins. All of it anticipating new projects that will have to wait until Alexandria.

Some things, in addition to the donated books, will not make the trip to Virginia. A pile of things for Goodwill covers the table. Yet another garbage bag sits in the corner for more junk. Nor will the bed be going with me. It's time for a new one, which I won't buy until I move into the new apartment.

The here and the there entwined together in the same process. This is the twilight zone that I've written about before. It deepens as I pack because, at least for me, the process of packing begins journeys through time. There is something about touching an object that opens those pathways. Sense memory, like the smell of honeysuckle that always takes me back to childhood summers. Or the taste of hot chocolate that reminds me of Mrs. Piasecki, who made it for us after we shoveled her driveway in the winter.

Some are bittersweet. The crystal dragon was a gift from Brian, with whom I shared more than a third of my adult life. The inscription my father wrote in a book given to me not too long before he died. A picture of my grandmother the last time we brought her down from the nursing home for Christmas.

So in a very real way, I'm packing my memories to go with me to a place where I will have many new ones.