Things!
For the first time, I realized the luminous Mary Oliver and I weren’t quite on the same page.
It’s been over a month now since I began what would be an arduous, two-week task of cleaning out my Kalamazoo storage unit. Why did I have a Kalamazoo storage unit, and what does that have to do with Mary Oliver, you ask? Well, one house downsizing and one move across the country created the need—too many things, not enough room—and that’s why Mary Oliver had hers, solidified in her poem, “Storage.” I think I had a few other reasons.
Oliver starts with her usual direct observation:
When I moved from one house to another
there were many things I had no room
for.
True that. In late 2020, I sold the house that was ours for 12 years and most recently served as quarantine central. A big house. Our family home. The home that saw the big kids go from elementary school to graduation, the home Charla was born into, and the home Brian last slept in. Going from 3,200 square feet to 1,600 square feet—a sweet home complete with a turret was waiting for me and my youngest—required significant downsizing.
The big kids were going their separate ways: Dylan and Olivia were newly married, with all their stuff headed to Iowa, and Sarah was moving into her own apartment. But that made little difference. The things that remained had accumulated over twenty-five years, filling up the garage, basement, closets, and cabinets. I come from good hoarding stock, so you know I thought it was all important.
But I found my limits. The basic living stuff that wasn’t meant for the new home was sold or donated. That was easy. But then there were the precious things. Brian’s things. His gear, his papers. Stuff from our lives before we were together. I didn’t even give it a second thought: they wouldn’t fit in the new home (literally and figuratively, Charla and I were beginning again), and they certainly wouldn’t be disposed of. Into the storage unit they went. Two years later, we moved to Santa Fe. You’d think I’d have cleared it all out then. Reviewed. Edited. Let go. Nope. More stuff went in.
When I moved away, the storage unit and what it contained was mostly out of sight and out of mind. But I would remember what was there from time to time and feel a particular pang of grief and then relief, memories held and protected. Mary had a different reaction:
Occasionally I went there and looked in,
but nothing happened, not a single
twinge of the heart.So one day I undid the lock
and called the trash man. He took
everything.
Good for her. Maybe I can do the same. Four years later, I am back in Michigan for the summer, soaking up my new grandson for an extended period. Now I have time. Now it’s time to unburden.
Initially, I was totally with Mary—look at all these things!
Motivated to completely clear it out, Sarah and I started practically and efficiently while Sam and Elijah cheered us on. The easy stuff was up front: cushions without a couch—dumpster, clunky bed frames—donate; a working chainsaw (?)—sell. Not a twinge of the heart.
We are only a foot in.
Sarah found Brian’s driver's license, randomly in a box of random things. Then I saw this thing—his video camera. Those things—a box of his college papers and photos and the desk he loved to work at.
And then, oh, this thing—the vintage large-format camera that had belonged to my dad. My dad? Oy. This was going to be hard.
Sarah and I were both immediately overcome and overwhelmed. Sarah was sad and angry at her dad for dying and putting us in this predicament. I was upset looking at the things that represented two of the most important men in my life, neither of whom could tell me anything of what these things meant to them.
As I grew older the things I cared about grew fewer, but were more important.
I wish they grew fewer, Mary. I really do.
I remembered the afternoon I tried to take down Brian's garden fence in Portage, weeping because rolling up that green wire fence felt like I was physically tearing him away from our yard. I had to learn then—and am still learning now—that physical things do not represent his place in my story. But standing in the humid Michigan heat, I felt I wasn’t ready for the physical and emotional weight of the storage unit, or for what I was tearing away.
Until I was. Lucky for me, I had therapy planned that day. I had been annoyed knowing I had to break away from the unit, but it was a colossal pain to reschedule, so I kept the call.
Donna validated the emotional and physical toll of such work—deferred grief work—and reminded me of the many ways that love weaves its way into the physical stuff of our lives. But she also reminded me that the love woven into our memories and experiences is what really matters. Conjuring Brian typing at his desk into the wee hours, or what I remember of my dad and me putting together a simple cabinet (yup, in the storage unit), are the real things of love. How grateful I am for these layers of memory.
I felt like the little donkey when
his burden is finally lifted. Things!
Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
fire! More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who ownnothing–the reason they can fly.
Mary wants to burn it all down to make room for the birds (I mean, of course she does!). But my heart doesn't work in clean, sweeping blazes. My heart hoards love. However, I need not hoard things.
Sarah and I kept at it and made progress. I kept at it for two weeks more, lingering over the love and letting go of the things. I tossed, sold, and donated, and then donated some more. A widow of sixteen years came by to pick up three boxes of Christmas decorations that would be given to families in need—such a better place for the oodles of lights Brian had struggled with but kept alive. I’ll keep that memory, thank you very much.
Light for miles…
As I went through the boxes of saved papers, I found the deed to the cameras—a formal letter of gifting from a father to his daughter. Worthy of a frame. The camera stays. A few other precious family items stay with us, too: the best of the best kid drawings; Dylan gets the desk; Sarah, a chair; Charla, a fairy cabinet.
I mean, I really hate to split hairs with Mary, but it wasn’t about making room in my heart for love. I’ve said it before: our hearts are expandable. It is why a mother can love every child she has, their loves, and still make room for a grandchild and all the family to come. It is why we can have more than one true love over a lifetime, and love our fathers and stepfathers, too.
I finished what I set out to do. It was empty. I cried as the final piece, a broken cabinet, went to the dumpster—worrying I was betraying my father, but knowing I was freeing myself.
I chose to let go of the physical weight of these things that somehow intensified the weight of the memories. And I will carry the lightness of the love they represent in my growing heart instead, and let it soar a bit more.