Accounting for In and Out

'What have you been doing since you moved back home?' they ask me. 

"Stuff," I should answer, if I'm being completely honest and not caring about sounding polite. 

"Just dealing with STUFF. More stuff than a person should have to handle (and honestly, I know that I am comparatively on the low end of that spectrum). 

Packing stuff. Unpacking stuff. 

Inheriting stuff. 

Selling stuff. Consigning stuff. Giving stuff away. Donating stuff. 

Buying new and better stuff to replace the old and not-so-good stuff. 

Emptying out a storage unit that had boxed stuff we couldn't immediately shove into our loft without going mad. 

I should note that it's the second storage unit I have emptied in the last 6 months. Having and indefinitely maintaining a storage unit is, in my opinion, the worst kind of existence. I can't philosophically justify paying to store things I won't use on a more regular basis or accommodate in my home. 

I know I'm starting to sound like George Carlin's much-lauded rant on stuff. He was right...and he was right to lecture us about it. And I say that as an artist who MAKES STUFF. 

I am so sick of stuff that while I normally enjoy wandering through antique and junk shops, even with zero urge to purchase, I can't really get into it right now. I can enjoy wandering through new-to-me grocery stores because they are mostly populated with consumable goods. But otherwise? I can't handle it, and I don't know when I will be able to."

That would be the point at which someone - their eyes justifiably glazed over, if they haven't figured out a way to walk away from my rant -would probably pat me on the shoulder and say that they understand. They might commiserate about how dealing with stuff isn't much fun.  

It is also emotional, and even traumatizing, I will add. 

Just to have this as a record to reflect upon, I crafted a list of the things that came with us or into our American living quarters, and the things that went away, one way or another. Put in this format, the list looks pretty innocuous.  

But to better understand it, I have to underscore that this list is the result of:

-6 years of living abroad (in a 7 room apartment)

-4 deceased immediate family members (I have no one to name for my 'In Case of Emergency,' which is distinctly sobering), and their stuff

-2 households' worth of stuff, consolidated and shrunken into 1 (which is a 5 room loft - 2 of those are bathrooms)

-1 life estate holder who has locked me out of a house I technically own, so I had to assume more immediate possession of stuff that could have waited, but...

Here and there are some of the more pleasurable highlights as well as harsh (?) realities: 

IN: 

144 bottles of Italian wine and spirits

Contrary to those lame days of yore, in which Georgia would not allow anyone to ship spirits to themselves from outside of the state, you are now allowed to ship up to 12 cases within a year. As you know, American cases are 12 bottles. Italian cases are 6 bottles. So, I commandeered the inventorying of our wine shipment from Italy, which entailed 24 carefully crafted boxes designed to ship glass bottles. 

I know that shipping this stuff is expensive, but if it's done right, there is zero loss. 

Conveniently, all of our dining room furniture was gone by this point of our 'pack-out' in Rome. 

I not only inventoried this shipment, I built much of it. If we hadn't picked it up from a vintner on a trip, I was ordering it, based on photos I'd taken of this wine or amaro label (an amaro is an after-dinner digestive..Italian's have long held not just the corner of the market, but the whole block, on this beverage, with a huge array of types). If the pandemic did anything positive for Italy, it sharpened her ability to get shipments from wine and spirit-making monasteries and vineyards to eager recipients in rapid-fire order. Heck, a particularly plentiful distributor in Rome keeps its promise to deliver your order within mere hours. 

This was a satisfying sight.

Here's how it's packaged.

Box cutter for slicing open the top....

Folded cardboard inserts inside.

...with convenient finger holes.

After this bulk from the top is removed...

...the lift reveals 6 bottles. 

I did this 24 times.

And broke down all the materials for our community dumpster.

The mountain of cardboard was stupefying.

1 Italian mid-century modern bar to hold some of those spirits

Once you get to know some ex-pats who are spending a couple of years working and living in Italy, you find out about the massive antique fairs that take place once a month in Arezzo and Lucca. And while this sounds like a very cool way to acquire some interesting pieces, the truth is that everyone else knows about these fairs...and so the prices are steep, as are the fees for shipping something to your home, wherever you happen to be living. 

This little gem was for sale on a street not far from our apartment in Rome, and we actually wedged it into our Prius compact to get it home.

With the exception of a few bottles of Pimm's and a couple of nice whiskies from the highlands, the remaining contents are Italian. (Realize that we were not allowed to ship any opened containers).

The expat joke - which may not actually be laughable - is that we want to buy up as much of Italy as possible and take it home with us.

We tried - I swear - to be selective about that. 

95 spices

Next to our wine collection, and behind the earless cat with his face in his bowl is a...first aid cabinet? 

Not for our household. It's what we call Spice Aid. 

It was purchased from an antiques shop.

When my house in north Georgia was on the market years ago, I was asked if I would leave Spice Aid intact in the kitchen. The buyers wanted it.

NOPE, was my answer. I didn't need to think about it.

It holds almost all of our spice collection.

That collection is the product of many travels, some friends who have muled things to us, long searches in various places...it's a collection. It would be very difficult to replicate, not to mention, very expensive.

For our international move home, we were prohibited from shipping any open containers that had 'food' in them. So in the weeks before our 'pack-out' in Rome, I parked myself in the kitchen for several hours, paintstakingly emptying out each jar into a zippered plastic bag, labeling each bag, and packing those bags into small boxes we shipped via USPS to my mother-in-law.  

Months later, I parked myself in a different kitchen on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, unpacked all those boxes, refilled the jars, and finally closed the door on Spice Aid. 

It took a couple of days.

In another post, I will explain how and why I've managed to bump up the number of spices to well over 100.

We elected to leave this list affixed to the inside of Spice Aid's door.

Do you think we have enough salts and peppers? They don't fit into Spice Aid.

2 Roman cats

Pro-tip: if you can, leave your cat carriers out and open in the household. The benefit lies in de-stigmatizing them. 

Now, these guys...are just digesting the fact that we praised them for hanging out in their carriers AND also announced we were taking them to Camp Kitty for the weekend. 

"Wait...we have to GO SOMEWHERE in these things?"

8 new leather handbags                        No shame. 

5 new coats          Ironic, as the winters became progressively warmer each of the six years we were there. 

1 small, new print press                    Priscilla Press-ly is doing well in her new studio space. 

9 printmaking brayers - some new, some used

Countless zinc plates and etchings, inks and paper. Lots of paper.

1 large box of varieties of dried Italian spelt pasta - price this on Amazon. Then you'll understand.

Some spectacular jewelry by various Italian artisans

2 mid-century modern end-tables   I've not kept much that was my father's, but these came to live with me.

2 air purifiers                        News flash: Evander the Earless Cat is probably asthmatic. 

1 dehumidifier                

                                Our loft is a 'real' loft, in the sense that it is a converted space with tall, tall ceilings. The space was originally an electronic parts factory. A neighboring loft still has a giant scale embedded in its floor. Our end unit has two brick walls. The flooring is concrete. We'd started to think, before moving in 2016, that after a spate of rain, the loft interior seemed...damp. 

                        And upon our return, we've agreed that we just need a dehumidifier to keep the concrete floors from being slimy. We're thinking that this is just another piece of the climate change puzzle: more rain, more frequently...it's becoming more and more difficult to keep the wet out. 

1 new pet drinking fountain

    Jasper is a Roman, through and through. He treats his water bowl like a Roman nasoni. 

1 Subaru

        I'm happy to report that I recently found out that the AC works in my new-to-me car. I'm not happy to report that I turned on the AC on March 1st. That's just...nuts. 

Countless family photos, mementos

OUT:

200+ books

                        If you know me, you know I have a library, and it means a lot to me. I rely heavily on it. I can't imagine a life without books in it. I was a voracious reader as a child, and my TBR shelf today is...not just one shelf. I collect exhibition catalogs the way that some people collect concert t-shirts. Books are my friends. The predominant focus of my collection is art and art history. I do have some author or artist-signed books. 

And while The Spouse has often gently said to me that we don't have a book problem, because books are not frivolous things to collect...we had to cull the collection when it was clear that we would be moving back into our 2 BR, 2 BA loft. We just couldn't accommodate the entirety of our bookshelves and books anymore. 

So, we culled the books that came out of longterm storage, the books that we had not lived with in Italy anyway...it was easier to feel distanced from many of them. We donated most. We sold a few valuable tomes. We gave away select bookshelves, including one barrister.  

3 cars

       My father had three vehicles, and as sole inheritor of his estate, they were all mine. The trouble was, they had some or a lot of age (the pickup topped out as the oldest at 31 years, purchased the year I graduated from college). I wasn't entirely confident that two of them would make the drive south to Atlanta, or be safe vehicles to have IN Atlanta (if you know what driving here is like, then you know...)

    Our only car (I sold mine before moving to Italy) was on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic...for months. Remember the shipping nightmare of 2022? We - or rather, our whole household - was in the middle of it.  After I returned to the States in June, I spent some time looking online for a car to purchase. Remember the scarcity of used cars in 2022? I was in the middle of that, too. Remember how car rentals were not only scarce but also therefore hella-expensive in 2022? Yeah, we were eating that on a daily basis, too. 

    I flew to my hometown, finally got the keys to two of the three vehicles, traded one in for the only Subaru I could find and afford, personally sold the second one to the dealer who offered me more than twice what the dealership would offer, and then sold the pickup to my father's across-the-street neighbor. This unfolded in about four days' time. Not only was I lucky to pull this off, I was lucky to be assisted by a good family friend in the whole endeavor. 

1 house

    That same assistance also came with the sale of my grandmother's house, which had been in my father's possession since 2004. I was able to skirt the use of an agent and avoid the craziness of the market (as well as the fed's hiking of interest rates) before having to board a plan to return to Rome to teach in late summer. It was a total whirlwind, but it was also easier than I ever expected it to be.

    I would like to think that my grandmother is satisfied that a young couple with a DIY attitude is turning the one and only house she ever owned into something of which they can be proud. 

The rest of this list is a mish-mash of sold/donated/consigned/tossed. It was a lot to process:

2 beds

1 sofa

Countless pillows, blankets, sheets, throw rugs

3 dressers

3 bookshelves

1 bedside table

1 set of cookware

2 sets of dishware

24 pieces of glassware

1 table lamp

1 floor lamp

2 full sets of china - both in excellent condition

1 modern coffee table

1 mid-century modern end table

1 upright bass

1 full set of new flatware

7 middle and high school yearbooks

5 photo albums and their contents

1 extension ladder

1 hard drive

1 computer monitor

2 large framed posters

Clothing. A LOT of clothing. 

An incredible amount of clothes hangers

Shoes. I don't know how many shoes.

Sheets and towels. A LOT of sheets and towels

Various pieces of kitchen and bakeware

Countless pieces of housewares, collectibles

My own art....

_______________________________________________________________________

To sum up all of this is to share the phrase Swedish Death Cleaning. Perhaps you've heard of it. The point of such a cleaning is to eliminate as much of the unnecessary clutter from your life as possible...while you are still living. It is a great act of love, honestly, to help those who will outlive you but ultimately deal with whatever you leave behind. 

I remember, after my mother passed away, my father was on an absolute tear: chucking virtually anything and everything that my mother had collected and kept, to which no one else had any attachment. It disturbed me a little, to see him so driven to so swiftly take literal truckload after truckload of things to a charity. It was exhausting to witness. It was exhausting to participate. 

(It was exhausting to take containers of loose coins and tins of rolled coins - collected from my father's nightly emptying of his pockets - to a local bank (so many trips from the car to the teller's counter!)...and learning that the whole lot amounted to over three thousand dollars.)

 

When he (we, at least on the periphery...I and a couple of family members helped for that first frantic week) was finished with the huge overhaul, he had the interior of the house freshly painted a basic white. All the fussy curtains and sheers came down, and in their places were simple, white blinders. 

He had cleared the clutter, wiped a slate. He wanted my opinion of it, but it truly seemed that he was satisfied, regardless. 

The truth is, four years later, he also did me a HUGE favor. The purge was a great act of love.

If you look around your living space, think about this prospect: saving your loved ones from having to go through your belongings, experiencing pains, pleasures, curiosities and outright mysteries. The accompanying trick is figuring out how to imagine your last days - if you are lucky enough to be fully present for them - without your creature comforts, your tchotchkes, mementos, whatnot. While mine will mean nothing to anyone after me, they mean something to me. 

I'm dealing with my life history like an onion, peeling away a layer here and there. Tossing some things out with flat resolve. Regarding other things for a bit of time, taking a day or more to think about it, and finally getting rid of those layers, too. 

The process is draconian. I feel like a bonafide adult. It mostly sucks, but is sometimes satisfying. 

I feel that I have to have this reckoning while I am not especially under any sort of duress or time limit. 

For now, I'm keeping the things - words, mostly, but sometimes images - that speak to my good works, the good that I did, the good times I shared. 

An accounting of the things that really mattered, even though I cannot be wholly certain of how to define 'mattered,' and suspect that the definition is too fluid to pin down anyway. 

My birthday is this month. The not-so-funny card that came with the gift of a future experience: