I was whining this afternoon about how little I’d managed to write of late. ‘It’s full-time work,’ I explained. ‘It’s moving house …’
‘Moving house? Surely you’re over that by now!’ came the reply.
But the thing is, I’m not. So not over it.
A definitive part of the whole RTW experience is said to be the moment when you confront all the hideous stuff you managed without for an entire year. I’ve read stories on other people’s travelogues of their opening up the garage door or the mesh grille of their storage space only to shut it again – quickly, and with a sense of horror. They say they were thinking all the while, What is this stuff? Why did I buy it? How the hell can I get rid of it?
In our case, this definitive moment has been somewhat delayed. We’ve only just ‘merged’ with our belongings again, having now moved out from Andrew’s parents’ place and back into our own apartment.
The process has been excruciating. Moving is a nightmare, without a doubt. But it’s doubly painful when you’re looking at your belongings with a kind of estranged disregard. Your stuff seems clunky and weighty and massive. You wonder how it is you thought all these things were necessary for living.
I have now discovered that prior to going away I amassed kitchen mixing bowls like they were going out of fashion. I made an artform out of aquiring graters and plastic chopping boards.
Strange themes emerge in your possessions when you see them afresh. I've suddenly realised that I own a plague of little Japanese ceramic dishes. Some are shaped like flowers, some are white, some are coloured, some are patterned. They’re all sweet and delicate and cute and BLEH – what on earth was I thinking? How many of these things did I imagine I could use? I can only conclude that one shop in Surry Hills, Mrs Red & Sons, must have taken half my pay packet for about two years running. And to think, all I have to show for it is a gazillion little bowls that can’t hold much more than a stick of incense or a clove of garlic.
One of my dear friends got married recently, and I will to admit to having a dark thought at the wedding. I took one look at the table piled high with gifts and I thought to myself, No, no, no! Imagine that much paraphenalia flooding into your home. The thought – given our present predicament – was quite unbearable.
Still, maybe I'm just jaded. When my mother remarried in 1985, I was six years old. Even more than my hot-pink tafetta flower girl's outfit (accessorised with lacey white bobby socks and shiny patent leather shoes - oh 80s glam!), I loved my mother and step-father's collection of gifts. I remember sitting in the kitchen watching them being unwrapped: joy of joys, a toaster! Another toaster! A set of placemats with pastel-painted orchids on them! A rack for cutlery!
I truly thought those presents were the bomb - especially the cutlery set. I never tired of the plastic handles with the hole punched through them to allow the pieces to hang on their little display rack. This marvel was surpassed only when my brother was born a year later, and gifts were duly brought to the hospital. Someone - in fact, a confirmed-batchelor, playboy barrister - brought along a giant pink plush pig. It was a sow, to be precise. A sow with eight small, pink, plush piglets hanging from its nipples courtesy of the magic of velcro.
Oh you piggy nipples! Rip! R-i-i-p! R-iii-iiiii-p! I never tired of detaching and re-attching those stuffed baby pigs.
Oh dear God. I know this horror you speak of. Motivated by a little do-gooder stint in Mexico this summer I brought only one small rolling case of clothing on my subsequent study abroad to Spain. I'm already thinking about the "storage room" in my dad's basement filled with clothing and JUNK - some of which I have never used.
The Salvation Army is going to love me.
Posted by: Candice | January 06, 2007 at 03:40 PM