Remember that old Talking Heads song, Burning Down the House? That’s running through my head with new lyrics as we tape box after box together, fill them and stuff newspaper around the edges: Packing Up the House! Athena showing off our latest newsprinty hands look As of last week we rented a storage unit 10 minutes away and started to fill it. It’s amazing though, how many boxes we have already put in and how much the house still looks like there’s plenty in it. I keep coming close to that place of ultimate frustration with all the stuff we have accumulated which seems so necessary for American life and been ready to walk away and just bag the rest. In principle, I want to keep a light hand on my possessions. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, right? Here is opportunity to put that into practice. Really, how much stuff does a family of six need? So, these thoughts wander through my mind as I wrap up another serving dish, appliance or box of books and slap on another piece of packing tape. The kids have been great, sorting through their own things, packing boxes, following my packing and organizing instructions. It’s hard for them, though to keep this pace up over time. We’re all ready to finish the long goodbye and get on our way. But to get their we must slog through this part. Pack another box. The Legos, you might like to know, have been given reprieve until the very last moment. Meanwhile, our dear neighbors who will be renting our house while we’re away just had their newest baby, hooray! They are a total answer to prayer, whether they know it or not. One week a few months ago, I had been praying for confirmation that this adventure was God’s leading as we felt it was and not just our crazy idea. That week, my friend Mrs. Neighbor, came down for a chat. She said she knew we wanted to rent out our house while we were gone. They had decided to do a pretty big remodel of their house and would we consider renting to them? Um….YEAH! You bet we would! The hitch was that they were only planning to need it for 5 or 6 months starting in May. This was before we could vacate it and for only half of the time, but we still loved the idea of renting to someone we know. We figured God would work out the details of the rest of the year. So He did. First Mr. and Mrs. N’s building plans got slightly delayed as they worked out with their builder.  Now they wanted to rent starting July. Oh! That works for us! In the meantime, their plans have expanded and now they are going down to the foundation and recognize that they will likely need to stay in our house for the whole year. Oh! That works for us, too! So the first part of their plan, to have their baby who is causing all this need for expansion, has been accomplished. She is safely here and will hopefully be available soon for getting acquainted. That is the one sour note in all this, leaving town when there is a new baby in the neighborhood.

With the car gone and less than two months until departure, it’s time for purging to start in earnest. We had a garage sale a couple weeks ago and will probably have another one before the end, but in between, the stuff can’t wait. Out it goes. It’s supposed to be a “light move”, meaning what we take now is whatever we can fit into two suitcases each. Even at only two each, that makes twelve suitcases, and we’ll probably need a caravan to get to the airport. And that doesn’t include musical instruments and a doggy. So we can really only take the essentials in our suitcases. For months now, I’ve looked around at our possessions with two questions running through my mind: Is it one of the essentials I am taking along? If not, am I willing to pay to store it for a year? More often than I’d like to admit, the answer is “NO” to both questions. Why on earth then am I keeping it in the first place? And so I purge. Or at least I am trying to. As the child of two pack-rats, collecting and keeping stuff for “just in case” is in my blood. Zeusy can be a just-in-case collector as well, mostly involving computer cables and door hardware, and so between us, we are really prepared! But kind of cluttery. I don’t like it. I hate the look of my cluttery little piles mushrooming everywhere, and the amount of work it takes to clear space for creative projects. Sometimes I catch a vision for something different. My friend Kristen, before she moved away a year ago, Boo-Hoo, kept giving stuff away. But she was giving stuff away even before they were going to leave. I think she just did it all the time and enjoyed a life unburdened by so many things. And her counters were always clear! Ahhhh.Two years ago, when I started helping my mom clear out a storage unit she could no longer pay for, I got a shock at seeing how much junk was in those boxes. Boxes of old clothes, old magazines, old kitchen wares, my grandfather’s college papers. Boxes of things that were left by my grandmother when she passed away in 1983, that stayed in my mom’s house, and that were left unsorted again for eleven years, despite my handwriting saying “sort soon” from when we’d helped my mom move. Half-empty boxes costing space, money and effort that nobody had. I am still recovering.Now that the term “storage unit” has reentered our lives as we plan to rent one for our things for the year, I am a little skittish. I am determined that nothing goes in that I wouldn’t really want to take back out again.There is a part of Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott when her friend is dying of cancer and the doctor tells Anne, “Watch her very closely now; she is showing you how to live.” What he meant was that when she came face to face with her imminent death, this friend lived the life she really wanted to and didn’t put up with the stupid entangling details of life. Our journey is nothing like the Ultimate Journey, and I don’t wish to make light of death, but I do think there is a tinge of that kind of thinking in my thoughts about possessions these days that is very healthy. I hang on to so many things for just-in-cases and what-ifs and so-as-to-impress and when-I-find-the-time. But maybe I don’t anymore want to be the kind of person who keeps an ravioli maker in the cupboard for years just because I got it once for free. There it’s been for years, in its bent box, filled with dust and pipe dreams of homemade gluten-free ravioli. I do miss ravioli, but I don’t think I need the silent insinuation that I should be making some. When it came up for review again recently, I had on my William Morris-y glasses on – Is it useful? Do I think it’s beautiful? But all I heard in answer was the voice of Garth from Wayne’s World, “Dude, it’s never gonna happen! Live in the now!” I’m finding that while the initial break is hard, the feeling of ensuing freedom is a bit addictive. I have set the ravioli maker free like a butterfly to find a home where it can truly be loved and happy!What’s that you say? You say that the ravioli maker doesn’t really have feelings? It wasn’t actually feeling neglected there on the shelf and so it doesn’t really feel free and happy now that I have let it go? Are you sure? Well, what do you know, anyway? I’ll tell myself whatever it takes to get it out the door.

Yesterday we shipped the Mazda car. A big tractor trailer truck came, and the man drove little Blueberry Car on board and away. It makes this whole thing feel very Real. We shipped it now so it will be there waiting for us upon arrival, and we’ll have a way to get around. The plan is to drive it there for the year, all six of us scrunching and not growing or breathing too much. Before we come back, we’ll sell it used over there and hopefully get enough for it to come back and buy a used vehicle here to replace our aging van.  Kind friends are loaning us a car when they go on vacation in a few weeks, but until then we are a one car family and Zeus is going to get all buff biking to work. By paying a bit extra to ship the car, we were able to send it packed. “The essentials,” Zeus said when we discussed this months ago, “you know: snow tires, skis, ski boots, ski jackets.” Hmmm…that’s the essentials??? I thought. What about clothing? A pot or pan or two? Happily, there was space for some of those as well. In the end, I decided not to send my nice pots and pans and figured I can get some IKEA ones for a year, if we don’t find what we need in the parental attic. I did, however, send one new cast iron pan, as they are hard to find over there (they are standard American cowboy equipment, don’tcha know) and I couldn’t live without one for a year. Actually I couldn’t even live two months without one, and I had to get a new one on sale at Fred Meyer’s to send. There are just so many nummy and eeeeeasy dinners that cook up nicely in that one pan: Frittatas, ratatouille, Dutch babies… We also put in winter clothes for all of us and summer clothes for Hermes to grow into next year. A couple books and hymnals, a spare guitar. Now that it’s gone, bound for Los Angeles, the Panama Canal, Le Havre and other exotic sounding places, I am having some regrets – why didn’t I get a big bag of Baking Soda at Costco to send? I recall once long ago trying to find the right translation and then having to visit a special drogerie to find it. When I told the druggist that I wanted to bake with it, his eyes nearly popped out of his head as if I’d said I wanted to put motor oil in my muffins. Vile Americans! he seemed to me to be thinking, as I purchased my tiny package of baking soda in a much mortified state. Now I am less insecure and would say, “That’s right, Baby, I’ll use it to cook and clean and brush my teeth!” Well, anyway, I guess that’s what I’ll have to do, seeing as I didn’t go to Costco and send a mega bag in the car. I didn’t get the huge roll of Stretch-Tite plastic wrap either, which aggravates the marrow of my soul, but I ran out of time. Now I will have to make do with small rolls of plastic wrap that doesn’t cling properly.  Unless, of course Swiss plastic wrap has improved in the past twelve years, which is quite possible. And as far as hardships go, these are pretty lame, so I will cease my whining and be grateful that when we arrive in July, our ski boots will be waiting. Little Blueberry Car, off to see the World.