I have wondered why I felt the need to bring so much stuff with me on our move to Italy. One obvious answer is that I thought we would be moving here to stay for a long, long time. Now I have changed my mind on that time frame. When we were planning our move, we briefly considered the furnished pied a terre option, and I vehemently discarded it. I felt that I needed to leap in with both feet, and bring my stuff so that my new home would feel like home.
So, something Angel said the other day really has been percolating through my mind, and I think this answers my question to myself. Some people are deep-rooted and some are shallow-rooted. I am deep-rooted. I put down deep roots by decorating my walls, accumulating books and papers, saving mementos, buying pots and pans and china and crystal. As a deep-rooted person, I am also a collector, for a collection ties me to a time and place. Maybe I collect 1930s kitchen implements, because doing that recreates for me a mythical time in the life of my family of origin that I have romanticized.
Therefore, when a deep-rooted one decides to uproot herself and plant herself somewhere else, a lot of stuff comes out with the roots.
A shallow-rooted person travels easily, rents places to live, doesn't mind using someone else's things temporarily. A deep-rooted person has tentacles that go back into her life, that drag things along from place to place.
Every once in a while there is a pruning, a garage sale, a dumpster to be filled. But basically it just pares things down a little. The ties to my past define me. I look at framed pictures and smile. I look at favorite books and think 'maybe I'll reread that this summer'.
When we have gone back to New Jersey, I will have objects from Italy and France and Vienna and London, and all the places we have yet to go.
When I was a kid, my family's neighbor was a couple who had lived in Saudi Arabia for thirty years, while the husband worked for Aramco. After he retired and they returned permanently to their home on our street, their house then held memories of all their travels. Roots in their pasts, however long into the future the past took to build itself. Layers of meaning, physical memories of a life. I like that. And so my boxes of stuff will always go with me.
3 comments:
Ciao womanofverona
I very much identify with this post. I won't go back, but I've brought it all forward from San Francisco, Korea, and New York to Italy. Surrounded by it and adding more.
Nice blog.
Joanna
Hah, I never considered myself deep-rooted until I read this post! I love living here but hate being surrounded by so few of MY things. This week my stuff finally arrives! I am soo excited! My OH is dreading it!
The blog is little else than a complaining board. Every blog is a complaint of you trying to adjust to something you clearly don't want to adjust to at all. A complaint of hoping to like it and waiting to feel that you like it when you really don't. Every experience is a complaint of why its not one way [your way[ instead of the other, meaning that you are not open to curiosity how another culture is different and to learn, but you want New Jersey there, you want your ways there and if its not, you're not happy. Then why move in the first place? Silly americans who never seem to be able to reason and know what they want.
Post a Comment