Whatever You Do, Don't Look Back, Take II

Whatever You Do, Don't Look Back
Originally uploaded by Tokyorosa

There's the storage unit that I mentioned a couple of days ago, the storage unit that Dave and I pledged at the New Year to clear out. That's an old picture. It's actually about twice as full now.

I was telling Kelly First about that damned storage unit today. I told her about how I am constantly nagging Dave to clean out the storage unit (because most of it is his stuff) and it's such a waste of money to keep things in storage year after year, and on and on. But after all that nagging I was dismayed to discover that the first layer of stuff in his storage unit is mine, stuff that I had put in storage before I went to Japan and which I promptly forgot about.

I went to Japan with two suitcases and I shipped perhaps two boxes of books and clothes. I didn't use half of it. That was a lesson. Ultimately, I'd like to pare my things down to nothing, down to what is necessary and only that. At the end of the day, I don't want to be defined by what I own or possess. I don't want to leave behind rooms full of garbage for my family to have to sort through. I've spent a lot of time and energy in pursuit of that goal. I intend to get it right.

Listen, despite my nagging, despite my fantasy of an existence unencumbered by possessions, I know it's not easy to get rid of stuff. I have a suitcase in that storage unit that I've picked up and put down and picked up and put down a dozen times. I haven't used it in years and it's pretty ratty, but I'm having trouble getting rid of it because it was a gift from my grandmother who died while I was in Japan.

My grandmother never, except for trips to Mexico, left the country. She never crossed an ocean. She never got on an airplane. She gave me the suitcase on my twenty-fourth birthday. A couple of years before, I had decided that I was going to try my hardest to celebrate each of my future birthdays on a different place on the planet. I come from a family that doesn't travel and I decided to break from that tradition and make travel a priority. It wasn't easy. For my twenty-fourth birthday, I was planning to fly to Mississippi to meet up with Dave (he was working there) and we were going to rent a car and drive to New Orleans, spend my birthday there, and then drive back to New Mexico. My grandmother's gift surprised me. It was the one time in my life when I really felt like she was paying attention to who I was and what I wanted out of my life.

So much of the time she and I were angry at each other for not living up to the other's expectations. She was angry at me for being something other than what she wanted me to be. I was angry at her for being something other than what I wanted her to be. She was staunchly anti-feminist and valued men more than women. That made me crazy. She was argumentative and unforgiving and angry about things that happened years and years ago. It seemed like such a waste to me. But as difficult as she sometimes was to deal with, she was also very creative and sometimes loudly joyful and I loved her in those moments. True, sometimes I hated spending time with her. But equally true, sometimes I now wish I had spent more time with her.

The last time I saw her was the night before I got on a plane to Japan. She was in the hospital and I went very late at night and I sat by her bedside while she slept. I knew I would never see her again. A few days before, I had leaned over her bed to kiss her goodbye and she had asked me to be careful in Japan.

It's not saying enough to say that I wish I could pack all my guilt about my grandmother into that suitcase and throw it in the river and have it be gone from me forever. I know that getting rid of the suitcase won't change anything.

I know that keeping the suitcase won't change anything either.