The Things We've Carried

On my mom's refrigerator she has this magnet with the quote, "The best things in life aren't things."
It is true we moved a lot while I was growing up, having attended four different elementary schools and three different high schools, but the reality is when I look back at those experiences and those places, I don't feel like I missed out on a single thing, and I wouldn't be the person I am today if I had had a consistent childhood. Home to me was where my family was, because there was always this feeling of having made the transition or change together. Of course having a familiar environment to return to, where you can recognize a part of yourself and your past, is a wonderful feeling of comfort. But when I think of home there's a deeper connectedness that can only come from the bond a close family share; a family that has been through a lot and has seen a lot, and still wound up rather 'okay'.

"We are not like everyone else," my mom used to say. And we weren't. We were often the new family in town; the family with the strange traditions and stories, the eccentric artist mother and the stay-at-home step-dad, but we were never without a house full of curious neighborhood kids wanting to try obscure foods they had never eaten before, or participate in activities they'd never done before. And though sometimes my sisters and I struggled with the occasional ways to "fit in", so were all our other peers, because let's face it, junior high and high school are a bitch.

I think a lot about the "things" we equate with a settled life, particularly the things we collect. As my mom wrote in her blog, we got really good at labeling the boxes and knowing where our stuff was supposed to go in our new homes. It is as though we had many versions of the same house, but in various locations. Even now I can point out the items my mom has kept over the years that have followed me from toddler-age to adulthood, they are like old friends I can revisit when I am feeling nostalgic.

For the last 2 1/2 years I have been writing a manuscript with this concept of artefactual things. The working title is, Zola's Wonder Closet, and its about a woman revisiting her past by tearing apart a closet she stored with all her "memories".  Here is an excerpt from the opening:

"Zola found solace in transitory places; where the people and the environment were different with each day. The ocean waters were never quite the same green-blue, and she was always finding a better spot to frequent and watch the passersby. Then there were the rare, beautiful things that would come unpredictably through her camera’s lens, giving her a clearer focus with every, new discovery. It wasn’t about routine for Zola. It was about finding a natural rhythm.

She needed the sea, just as her body needed salinity. She needed quiet spaces, just as she needed her solitude. And she needed distinctness, just as she needed inspiration. There was a comfortable continuity to her changing surroundings and she felt like the spinning top at the center of it all. "

Of course we write what we know, and I know this character Zola very well. There are many others like us trying to, as the poet Mary Oliver put it, "find our place in the order of things." Change is something I will always be able to adjust to no matter where I am, its what makes me an adaptable survivor, and I have my mama to thank for that important life skill.

- Sarah