Boxes as Evidence of Transition
Transition is a place all of its own. In between-ness. Being on the move, in motion. Sorting and packing. Yes this/not that. Clearing space, literally, for a new life cycle to follow, the unknown, fallow, yet fertile field yet to be plowed and sown.
My studio has become a staging area for my move. The boxes propagate like fleas overnight and stack up. My estimate of 50 boxes turns to the reality of 100 boxes.
Boxes of all shapes and sizes. A tiny box for heavy things like my 3-legged pot from Botswana or my professional quality Morfam massager that feels like a floor polisher when it goes over my back. A huge 6-foot custom-made box for my handcast paper boat ready to float in a new body of water. Slowly all the lumpy objects are boxed and cased.
Dennis comes to measure up the “Heartshell” clay and steel sculpture to build a crate for it. The moving expenses keep mounting, but I’m in “Just do it” mode. “Just pay the price and move on.” I run up to Lakeport to get a roll of bubble wrap we jam in the passenger seat of the car and boxes that ride in the back.
I borrow Daniel’s truck another day to drive up to Clear Lake to buy three huge bags of organic packing peanuts at the Paper and Janitorial supply store. A nice older man driving a sports car helps me tie down my load on the back of the truck with its sideboards up.
Not to mention the over a dozen trips to the women’s shelter in Lakeport. They know me there now and fill out the itemized list after I leave.
Archeology of personal history revealed through objects. Discovered, uncovered, recovered as I pack. Bubble wrap is insulation, protection, and transparency. You can see what you’re protecting. It’s like another body in the car.
What is this place asking of me?
Janet, you must be open, yet bounded. Strong yet vulnerable. Wise, in this newness.
What does this place know about you?
If this place could speak through you, what would it have to push aside in order to be heard?
Like the water molecules in the lake,we wait for the stream to take us to the place we have always known. Like the molecules we move and pack and bubble wrap ourselves, trying to remember who we are. Like the molecules we speak through change. Through that change we become the lake.
With Chi,
Hal
Janet, we can almost all of us relate to boxes and moving. Moving boxes impose order on the chaos of our possessions.
And what of the emptiness left behind?
Who and what will fill the void
of absent heart and mind?
Now comes the unpacking and settling into your new home. I can picture you standing in the middle of the living room, looking all around, feeling a tad overwhelmed, and then rejoicing in the new placement of the things that bring you comfort and that important sense of home. Have at it, girl!