The Alchemical Shift from Stuff to Treasure

Tonight, I'm so tired. I'm tired of living out of boxes. I'm tired of the smell of the guest house when there are four of us living back here with our dog and all our crap (both in boxes and oozing from them) where little bits of food can easily hide and worse, rot. My own home feels dirtier than almost anywhere we stayed in the developed or developing world!

I've been down right calm about this whole thing with minor breakthroughs of freak-out, but mostly flowing with the boxes, lack of cooking surfaces, dirt, chaos and mayhem. If you had told me a month ago that three weeks after returning state-side I'd be living among my boxes, sleeping on mattresses on the floor in our guest house AND that I'd be relatively OK with it, I'd have thought you were nuts. What's happening instead is that I'm the one going nuts!

It's strange actually as it is the returning back to "normal" that is the most unnerving. Today began the first full week back to school for the boys. I went to yoga, grabbed a few groceries so I have food items that could be made into lunches, and returned home. That was the problem moment. I came home. I walked into my room of stuff and I sank. I did what I use to do when I would return from a morning like I had today and I sat at my desk.

But what then? What do I do at my desk? I use to sit at my desk and respond to emails before diving into graduate school work. Yes, I have my dissertation still in front of me taunting me to begin...to dive in and join my classmates in the work most of them are already a year into at this point. But who am I kidding? I can't start writing or even taking notes for my dissertation in the kind of clutter that is surrounding my desk and my life.

Writing didn't even enter my mind today as a possibility. Instead I answered some emails and puttered on the computer before turning to the mountain of boxes and with a heavy sigh, opened one.

Yesterday and today I attempted to tackle "books." Books seemed like a good place to enter the mound. It seemed like a manageable segment of our stuff and one that I could easily purge heaps. I started off strong. I entered the cookbooks and cut about a third of those. Coffee table books too were sliced. Then, I opened the kids' books. Sound of tires screeching! I purged lots, but when you purge lots from mountains you still end up with mountains, just smaller ones. We have sooooo many books.

A part of me wishes I had no attachment to any of the books I went through today. That way I could just pack them up and cart them off to the library or charity and happily donate the lot of them. But instead, each box held treasures. Almost every night for nearly 13 years (minus the first few months or so) one of us would read stories to the boys at bed time. Most of the books left in the boxes are well loved, cherished and some I can recite by heart. These books mark moments in our lives with our boys. Odd Velvet, Mama Do You Love Me, Monster Mama, Cow on the Roof, Frannie B. Kranny, and of course, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day...to name but a few, all are part of our story--our family story. They make me laugh, smile and a few can choke me up.

We no longer read those books to the boys. Now they like series. Not so much KK, but Ru still loves to be read to before bed even though he's blasting through books on his own reading over 50 books during our year away. Thankfully, he gets that being read to is different, special. Brent and I sometimes have to wrestle to see who gets to read to the boys. Right now, Ru and Brent are near the end of a three book series and I haven't had a single night of reading since they started. Looks like I'll be needing to find a new series as I might get a turn soon.

But this doesn't help with the multitude of storybooks we've collected and that have collected us. What do I do with them? We're tangled up together, these books, our boys and I. It's true our boys are getting older and their need for these books is or maybe already has shifted. It took me years to get rid of their favorite board books as I saved those in case my niece or nephew were around and needed a favorite story. Jamberry still floats rhythmically in my mind as soon as I mention board books..."One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry..." If how long it took to part with those is any indication, I'll maybe purge the remaining storybooks when my kids leave for college.

And, maybe not. I still have a few books from my childhood that I've been able to share with my kids and as memory links for me to my own childhood. Yes, this is exactly the part of what makes my "pack-rat" tendencies thrive and it is also what helps create heritage. We don't have a lot of connection to things that last or that come from those before. New is best, but what makes something live is to use it.

My niece with some of my dolls that are now hers

I still have a box of Madame Alexander Dolls (the 8 inch ones representing different countries and stories). Like the books, I can't seem to let them go. I played with them, hard. They are collectors dolls, but not ones anyone would ever want. To the outsider, my dolls are in bad shape. I dressed and undressed, moved their arms and legs, gave them names, families and frequently took them on wagon trains to far off lands in our living room...one year we even decorated the Christmas tree with them. Now, the glue that holds their hair in place is gone, the elastic in their bodies connecting to their limbs is old and very few shoes are left in the whole lot! But these dolls and my sister's dolls are precious because they lived rather than stayed perfect on a glass shelf or their box. Just like my treasured books, I can't let them go. When loving energy has been spent and memories woven into the molecules of the dress or page the item becomes elevated from thing to treasure.

What then...Someday treasures will either lose their power, or the space in our home will no longer allow them to be saved, or a niece or nephew will come along and need that very doll or that exact storybook. Then they are passed, the legacy and heritage is handed on. Something about that form of purging feels better than OK, it feels right. When I pass on a treasure to another in my line they are not just getting a book or a doll, they are being handed a link to their ancestry, our shared ancestry. Perhaps it is through the sharing of treasures that I feel my stories continue to live...my dolls will find joy in being played with once again and the words flowing off the pages of favorite books will further sew families together as they have stitched together the bedtimes and hearts of ours.

It is a hope or perhaps just a delusion that enables my tendencies to "keep" when toss, give away or gift would be far more productive at creating space. I am choosing to be judicious. I will not make space simply to make space, especially if the cost in doing so takes a seam ripper to the fabric of some of my most precious of memories. At some point the threads will fade on their own, but until then, treasures will remain.

We might get back into our house tomorrow...or maybe Wednesday...or...

Soon all of the treasures will need to find a more permanent home. And the stuff will need to be further sorted as only treasures will be joining us on the other side of the yard. If I think about it too much, it's a daunting task. Today, I managed a box or two. That was it. That was all I could do when faced with familiar routine and out of control environment.

The ground is still rocking, shifting, settling. And it's time to go to bed.

Nomads and Memories

The strange truth of our re-entry so far is we are living all in one room not all that unlike how we lived much of our time away. Our home currently is a one-room, yoga-studio, guest house that has many boxes and a few crammed beds. The boys' bunkbed is at the foot of the one we're sleeping in and the close proximity does nothing for intimacy and everything for what my heart needs right now, family closeness. Meanwhile, across the yard sanding is deep in process and the familiarity is being adjusted. Even our house is getting a facelift as this year away did for our psyches. 

But, I am attempting to still get through boxes, opening, purging, dumping, sorting, tossing and keeping the treasures. Each box is a surprise, sometimes joyous and others a bit of a drag. Today, I opened two boxes sent from our travels back home for us to find, like I did today, and remember.

I loved opening the one from Vietnam as I couldn't remember a single thing we sent home from that location as Brent ran down to the post office just before we headed to the airport and therefore was a bit of a whirlwind in my memory. Such surprises awaited me! Inside were mementos from what was quite likely the very best, simplest Christmas ever.  There was the fabric we used to make our "tree" and the paper ornaments that I found in a small shop that I adored. They were worse for wear as the reindeer had lost its antlers and Santa needs some foot surgery, but the memories were totally intact, no glue gun needed for those! With a smile on my face, I packed them up in a box all their own and relocated the box to the garage with the rest of what is clearly labeled "Christmas." I look forward to having a rush of joy when, in early December, I find that box again when we begin to deck our halls for another celebratory season.

I also unpacked the large box from India. You have to understand, I have a certain set of problems with India. I love it, adore it, and shopping there is a magical journey unequaled in any other part of the world I have yet to experience (and I have experienced a LOT of other shopping meccas). I go a bit nuts. It might even be a bit of a psychological break as I buy things with glitter and sparkle, unlike anything I ever wear at home. My inner princess gets so happy and she must have been in charge of the rupees this trip as what I found when I opened that box was a hoot!

I had remembered the numerous saris I bought hoping to use them in my house for curtains, pillows and who knows what else. This is what I'm going to use them for and I'm excited to have some of India touching all around my home. But what else was in that box? Well, apparently, I like scarves. And ninja pants. And glittery bracelets and hair clips. And some ready-made top/bottom Indian-style outfits I wore everyday while there. And several fun tailored items I'd forgotten about that will be such joy to wear. And several tailored disasters likely never to see the light of day! 

Regardless, the boxes of travel trinkets have already served their purpose...they have connected me with memories of joy, connection, and play. I had worried that buying stuff along the way would just be a burden...we'd have to figure out how to ship it home which could get expensive, would we even want what we fell in love with while away, and might it just be more STUFF? This time, I have to say that the resounding answer to those questions is I'm glad we brought some of the trip home with us. Bringing it home helps us to bring it home. These little treasures are reminders of who we are and who we have been and become. I'm grateful to have them.

So if you see me wearing some strange outfit, just smile along with me and know that perhaps on that particular day, I needed to wear a different skin on the outside to match the one underneath, one that was made for me by a tailor in India attempting to do what I can hardly do myself...figuring out exactly what I want and how to make it all fit just right. 

Coming Back...Still living out of suitcases

Back.

Yes, we are back. It is a strange sensation really to be here and at the same point so very normal. We are altered and changed in ways we know and have yet to discover. We came home to an empty home, our master closet covered in cat pee, roots growing into our septic line that needed to be replaced, and more and more and more.

Somehow, I flowed with it all last week. I paused many moments in every day to reflect, look around or rest in the chaos. As the inevitability of living in the guest house with all our stuff for several weeks turned into a reality, we did our best to make it an adventure, just another one along the path of others we've walked before. I was feeling somehow incomplete that our trip was only 11+ months rather than the well rounded year, but now, I think we'll be doing great if our lives are more or less settled by the time we pass the year mark.

We are still living out of suitcases!

We're making it work. Yesterday, after no longer being able to take it, I broke out the cleaning supplies and went to town on the kitchenette and the bathroom back here hoping to make it all just a little more tolerable and a little less India-like. But who am I kidding! In India we had daily housekeeping that came with the apartment we rented so cleanliness was not an issue...here however, it just needed some strong elbow grease and with no housekeeper in sight, I tackled it myself!

Last week was actually pretty easy, especially all things considering. All around it was mayhem, dust, boxes and very very little space. Every day experienced appointments with workers helping to make the transformation from house to home. In the end, we got the kitchen unpacked and readjusted in the new more efficient way (glasses in a different cupboard!) and relocated to the guest house.

While we were traveling, we envisioned having a pool party this past weekend, thinking 5-6 days of being home and we'd be more or less ready to both host and receive our friends en mass. How wrong were we! The house is hardly ready, but perhaps it is just the outer manifestation of what's going on inside. Perhaps it is the chaos of the physical that can allow the mystical inner change to do what it needs to do.

We almost went to a festival type thing happening in Topanga last Saturday night. It sounded fun in one way, local youth bands playing a concert for local youth and parents in a way that happens seamlessly in Topanga. What's not to like about that type of event, especially with a teen now in the family?

In all frankness, nothing was to like about that for me. It actually, once here, the idea of that sounded like a unique type of hell. I couldn't imagine mingling socially, not yet. Don't get me wrong, I love people, but I haven't really had to be engaged with friends and acquaintances for a year. My "Social I" got a long well-needed rest. That part of me is not my favorite part of Self anyway. Too easily it can become hard or fixated, in Buddhist terms, "reified." If I were to go back into a social situation so quickly upon my return what would happen to that softened un-reified I've so enjoyed getting to know within myself?

Instead, I've been testing her out slowly, tenderly, acknowledging her newly formed skin. The biggest test was going to my family of origin exactly a week after our return. Perhaps because only 2 of my 7 siblings were there, I managed well. The overwhelming energy of the Bushnell Clan might have been my undoing, but instead I flowed, even expressed myself and my needs clearly when the opportunity arose to do so.

Even car shopping worked well enough. The details of that exploration is a blog in itself to come later! Suffice it to say, I went to 16 dealers in 3 days (10 of those on one day!). Finally, I gave up on the car idea, realizing that expecting myself to know which car is right for ME when I'm not sure who ME is, is a bit ridiculous! I'm borrowing for now and if I have to when my friend return wanting their car back, I'll rent. Why build the idea up that it needed to be tackled to drive carpool. Seriously, we've only rented cars all year and it's been great, easy and not a lot more expensive than buying/leasing when you break it all out.

All that said, the wave that I had been riding from the emotionally lovely arrival at LAX through this weekend that made it all seem like just another fun adventure...well, that wave started to go back out to sea and I was left wondering if I would have to tread water while waiting for another wave or if I might find myself a surfboard so that I could hang, in water-meditation-style, for the next wave.

As it became obvious that the fluid-joy-filled-everything-is-so-awesome wave headed out to sea my surfboard needed to be made from deep self-care. I noticed that I hadn't blogged or even journaled once since being back and the only time I stepped on my yoga mat was when I took a miss step and my foot found it all folded up, ignored.

So tonight, I write. I miss it. On our trip, writing became a form of reaching out to others but perhaps more importantly, to myself.

This blog is a purge, but also it is a reconnection. I don't really know how many people have been reading our blogs this year. Very few comment, if ever and they end up in people's inboxes to be filled, archived or deleted, but when that happens, before or after reading, is a mystery to me.

A Topanga friend stopped by unexpectedly the day after we returned home. She told me that as she walked up our driveway she got a flutter like one gets with celebrities when you know all about their life from reading headlines and they know nothing of you nor do they even know you know their stories. She had been following along all year, more or less silently and had become a part of our journey. Really?

And, my father-in-law (one I pretty much knew was watching our every move) said that I needed to keep blogging so that he wouldn't go into withdrawal as each morning, along with his cup of tea, he read our blogs or Facebook posts and view our photos.

So this blog is for me, but it is also for Dana and for Colin and for anyone else who enjoyed reading about our journey and would like to have a peek through the window of our re-entry. It has really just begun and as I realize the power of blogging for my own psychology, perhaps more will come...even after the airline miles ticking upward slow to a crawl and then to a stop altogether, the journey continues.

I continue to ask myself, "who am I now?" and "how have I been altered by this experience?" and more. Perhaps I'll discover threads to some of these here, in the written word with an unnamed audience in the strange community of cyber-space. We'll see.