Unpacking Home

In September of 2009, we packed up our dogs and took a field trip to San Francisco to drop them off to their foster parents. After our weekend away in one of our favorite cities, we went back to LA and packed up the rest of our things. Many of our things we sold - every single bookshelf we owned, our couches, the wicker chair and ottoman that had sat on the porch in Denver and LA. We passed on the small amount of baby things we had for our then 10 month old boy, except for the cradle my step-dad made. That we disassembled and stored, unable to part with it so soon after his sudden death a few months before.

     What remained we stored. Some things got stored by accident, like a box of old New Yorkers that was supposed to go in the recycling bin, but one of the moving guys loaded into the truck. Over the last 17 months, when the topic of our stored belongings came up, I have wondered how much money have we spent storing our recycling?

No matter, Husband points out repeatedly - as an avid and addicted fan of the purging process - that there will be many things we wondered why we kept.

I can't imagine there will be much of that though. We kept only the furniture we absolutely loved, that were antiques or family heirlooms. Scratch that actually. Some of the family heirlooms we gave back to the family. Or to a new family.

17 months later, we have finally landed in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York, in a cute brownstone (with yard!) around the corner from my sister. We don't even have to cross the street to get to each other's house. We moved in on the first, and given that we found the apartment only a few days before the first, we moved in with a borrowed air mattress, borrowed sheets and towels, and borrowed dishes.  We called my cousin in Portland whose always game for a road trip, and hired him to bring us our dog and belongings. It took him longer to get across the country thanks to a short jaunt into the Colorado mountains to visit friends where he promptly got himself snowed in. We originally expected him Thursday. We amended it to Sunday. Late yesterday, my cousin called my husband and said he's just outside the city.

Last night Husband and I sat at the kitchen table the previous renter left behind in shock that our things were actually coming. We tried to remember what furniture we still owned. My cousin has reassured us that we still have an unbelievable amount of crap. (Thanks for that.)

We made a list of what we'll be the most glad to see:

1) Husband's beard trimmer and razor. He's not an everyday shaver. He regularly oscillates between clean shaven and short beard. Except with no beard trimmer, his short beard has quickly become an overgrown thick mess reminiscent of the 70s. Kissing him, I feel like I might as well kiss the latch hook rug I made at the same time such scruffy beards were the fashion.

2) Our coffee cups. Oh the pleasure of the little things- over the last year and a half, having stayed in I don't know how many places, we have had our morning coffee in I don't know how many cheap Ikea cups, or cups that came free from a random bank when someone opened an account. We like mugs of coffee. Those small bank cups require constant refilling.

3) Our bed. I've slept on leaky air mattresses before and so I don't want to complain about the current leak-free air mattress we have been loaned. All things considering, it's not so bad. Over the course of our travels however, we have slept on some sad beds, so oh, our double sided pillow topped loveliness, I can't wait to have a good night's sleep with you.

4) Our kitchen. Our cookbooks. Our Kitchen-Aid mixer. Our baking pans.

5) Clothes. We've spent the last two months wearing the same five outfits. In Winter, I don't know that this matters much. It's all boots, trousers and sweaters. Still, my vintage dresses and jackets, my hats, my spare pajamas, and I'm sure I own more trousers...

6) I have bags of yarn stashed in storage - even after I donated a lot to schools and kids' groups that needed it for knitting projects, but I have to say I feel mixed about seeing my yarn. When it's in storage, I have an excuse to buy more (which I did - and knit my son a rather nice sweater if I say so). But I didn't get through all the yarn I bought rationalizing I needed more knitting projects, so now, I just have more stash. It may be time to plunk my child down in front of a movie or two and get some knitting done...

7) Our (my) collection of oddities and curiosities - a giant piece of coral, framed butterflies, a collection of cool old doll hands that I love but that freaks my husband out. Those kind of small things I've picked up at garage sales and flea markets over the years that end up making our house a home.

8) We bought an amazing dining room table in Bali and had it shipped home. It's gorgeous. It's long enough to host a quality Thanksgiving meal. We don't actually know where we will put it, but we're looking forward to seeing it.

9) We also bought a statue of Buddha in Thailand. We don't know where we're going to put that either.

10) My vintage crystal martini glasses. I bought them at an estate sale at the beginning of the recession. They hold four shots of gin each. The woman was selling them because of the vast amount of gin a batch of martinis required, she could no longer afford to host parties. In actuality, these will probably stay packed given the active running and climbing toddler boy in our house, and our martinis will be served in tumbler glasses, but still I miss seeing them in my cupboard.

As for the cradle, my step-dad made, we realized we can now part with it. Fyo is now almost 28 months - 2 1/2 is just around the corner. While we loved the cradle, and the thought, time, and work my step-dad put into it, we didn't realize until our son was born that we are baby holding types. Instinctively, we somehow knew how fast that initial baby phase goes, so we always held him. I put him in it once, so I could run out and move the car for street cleaning.  My step-dad was this way too - he always wanted to hold the baby. He made the cradle because he loved wood working and projects, but when he saw how little my son slept in it because some one was always holding him, he shrugged. "Ah well," he said, "You don't know until they arrive what you'll actually use." Indeed. Last night, husband and I agreed that even with plans for a second child, we don't need the things that are essentially baby storing devices.

Oh, and the recycling will finally be put on the curb.