Pestered by day 2 of gloom and doom today, and more than enough rain to successfully determine even the most valiant of efforts at outdoor activity, I chose instead to delve into the archives and tackle another round of storage.
Almost 3 years ago now, I dutifully undertook the sorting out and packing up, filling totes and Chiquita banana boxes alike with all the trappings of our life. Anyone who might happen upon them would surely be able to develop a fairly accurate depiction of who we were then, merely by digging through these treasure boxes of what we had found important enough to keep.
And so it was that I, sitting in a dim and damp basement, ripped through tape and packing paper to open a door we had last closed in Ohio. Cautiously I lifted lids and peeked into memory. Here were those treasure near and dear to us. Well loved books, cherished letters, trinkets and baubles and fabric remnants of another home and the life it had housed. These familiar pieces of an existence put on hold. The very sight of one battered picture book opened a floodgate in my mind: my son but an infant nodding off in his crib with tight fists raised above his head...rocking by the window on a starry night while nursing...wiping spaghetti sauce off the cover and the high-chair and myself...emptying the bookshelf...
I uncovered boxes and found more paperback books than I should admit to owning. I recovered two clocks and three vases. I found a travel sewing kit. Our old living room curtains. Every letter my best friend in Denmark ever sent me bursting out of a warped wooden box. And with every layer deeper more memories of life and love and everything in between.
I spent a good while there in that basement with those boxes, culling the pile of belongings. Once again making choices as to which was more important than the other. Which needed to be held onto tightly with both hands and which had outlived its belonging-stage. Hours later the boxes were fewer in number...the ones remaining made more valuable somehow in their re-choosing. And in the corner lay the castoffs...those things-those pieces and bits that I...in but a few hours time had relegated to the past and made my peace with. Perhaps they would go on to become someone else's treasure as they were now nothing to me but junk.
As I repacked those boxes today, individually picking up and hold and replacing one thing after another I was awash in memories. These items, like icons, retaining a whole world in their core. The value of each came simply from the life lived around it. The meals eaten, the words said, the emotions felt, the experiences...
These treasure boxes that were simply worthless cardboard and plastic catchalls when closed, opened to reveal priceless treasure indeed to the woman who had packed them up. They were the tangible representations of five years in a life...in a home... And they were packed up, ready and waiting to be made useful and memorable once again.
The real treasure is the memories...poignant, unrestrained, and ever growing in number.