Boxes and Boxes

So at some point in the near future we will be moving off of Turner St.

Details are far from finalized, but that is the decision we have come to over the past few months. We have started to outgrow our current home. The math problem of splitting two bedrooms among four people is getting harder to solve...some nights it is an even 2-2 split, most nights recently it has been a lopsided 3-1. Our ideal new home will have 3+ bedrooms, 2+ bathrooms (especially since the number of people who use the bathroom has increased by 50% in the past few months), and a small yard. A perfect place would be all of the aforementioned amenities on Turner St in Newton, so that I could continue to blog under this title, seamlessly making a transition from our old house to our new one.

We've been here since May 2005 and in those six years gained a lot of things. Now we are trying to pack up most of the non-critical items so that we can show this place to prospective buyers, most of whom will probably leave here thinking that we lead a very boring, spartan life. That's fine. They can think whatever they want of me as long as they pay us a good price for this place.

I hate packing. I am fortunate, then, that I married someone who is very good at packing, and who is able to look at the volume of things that we have accumulated over 6 years and make a plan for what to take, what to toss, and what to keep. If I was left in charge of the packing I don't think we would ever leave here. Thanks to Natalia's work, it looks like we will be able to actually show this place pretty soon. Small miracles.

For my part, I've been trying to rid myself of a lot of things I don't need. Old clothes? Gone. Books? Gone, with a few exceptions. Teaching materials? Sadly, gone for now. I can always make more blackline masters if I ever get into the profession again (which is looking less and less likely, if I am honest with myself). Three boxes worth of things that I had held onto for years and years was whittled down to two, then to one. I was proud of myself.

And then, deep in the storage section, I found two more boxes of things that I carry from move to move to move, but which I never unpack. I groaned as I found them. I must have known that they were there, waiting to be found...but perhaps I hoped that they would have been quietly misplaced somewhere between Sutherland Ave, Commonwealth Ave, and Turner Street, sparing me the decision of whether to keep or toss the contents.

I opened the boxes. It's not even a fair fight--these are the useless items that I don't want to display anywhere but cannot throw away. They are all memories and sentimental value. The contents of these boxes stand as a direct affront to my packing plan: keep what I need, give away what I don't. I could sift through them all night long but I know, at the end of it, I will be unable to toss anything. But I sift through them anyway.

Autographs from Tommy Heinsohn, Reggie Lewis, Marc Acres. Heinsohn has a nice signature. As does Reggie, RIP. They are both written in pen on lined paper, taken from a small CVS notebook. I remember taking this book with me to Celtics games when I was younger...back in those days you could get almost anywhere before the game started, so we would head down to the tunnel where the players came out to the floor. I got some good autographs that way (though I missed out on Larry Bird), and Bernard King talked to me once, so that was cool. The Marc Acres signature is only relevant here because he shares space with Reggie Lewis.

Three archery pins from Nobles Day Camp. These were the first things I earned, of my own merit, anywhere. Archery was the highlight of my summer days at Nobles. The rest of the days, and activities, were forgettable (especially swimming, which I hated). I remember being so proud of myself when I got these. They looked cool, first of all. And second, they were tangible proof that I was good at something--even if that something was a relatively impractical skill.

Baseball cards, including most relevant rookie cards from Topps in 1986 and 1987. Adam and I spent hours and hours and hours and days and weeks collecting these cards. Then we spent more hours and hours and months talking about how, 20 years from now ("now" being 1986 or 1987), these cards would be worth a fortune, so we had to treat Mark McGwire, Kevin Mitchell, Gary Sheffield, and Jim Abbott like family members. Turns out they are not worth much at all. But can I throw them out? Of course not.

There was some stuff I didn't want to keep but couldn't bring myself to throw out. Years ago my aunt went to Israel and brought back rocks from Masada; she sent them to me in a manila envelope. They are still in the manila envelope. But how do you throw something like that out? You can't. Same with a bunch of old stamps from around the world. Can't toss those either.

I did come across a couple of old photos that I was able to part with. One was a vintage 1984 feathered portrait of my old babysitter; the other was a school photo of my next door neighbor. These were fun to look at one final time before I discarded them. Can't keep everything.

I started to get tired of deciding what to keep and what to throw out, so I glanced at the rest, making notes about what I would make sure to throw out next time I went through the boxes. Old SAT and AP scores. Why do I even have those? Letters that I had kept for various reasons. Need to review those at some point too (just not now). And just as I had done at least two times before, I shut the boxes with most of their contents still intact.

I am sure that I will continue this ritual a few more times. Maybe someday I'll be able to part with some of these things, or maybe I'll find a way to take them out of the box and use them somehow. I comforted myself by thinking that these memories only took up a small amount of space and could easily fit inside the new storage unit that we'll be renting.

But who knows--maybe they will be lost in the move, and my memories will be able to detach from the things themselves. That might not be such a bad thing. Though I hardly wish for that...or do I? I don't even know. As long as the Mark McGwire rookie card is safe somewhere--that might still be worth something, someday.