with a transatlantic move comes the inevitable purging of things. decades of trinkets, clothing and mementos, following you from house to home. these inanimate objects emote all your memories and associations. they become sacred vessels, personal mnemonic devices, soulful entities. yet unlike your thoughts, intangible and absolute and unfettered by material bounds, they cannot all cross the ocean with you. you have to let them go.
it is not so much having to rid myself of things; i have mourned the attachment of many things already, just by acknowledging that i must rid myself of them. it is not so much having people go through them, either—i have already relived the associated memories through the mere act of sorting. by sorting through my things and by acknowledging that they must go, i am separating myself from their physical reality and, by the same token, allowing them to simply be, in their inanimate state, without me.
(until another grants them a second life.)
take the backless red silk shirt. when edith extracted it from the pile and inspected it for herself, it reminded me of that time i went to a cocktail lounge on bleury and de maisonneuve, 12 years ago. i wore a long black skirt with two black feathers dangling at the heart. i also wore that shirt, shimmering red; it was an intricate delight held by strings, so light and so young. i remember walking from the back of the lounge to the front. as i passed by the bar, a woman muttered something under her breath. it was a single word, unkind, and judging by the emptiness of the room, meant to no one else but me. i remember thinking about the layers of offense, the way it can be woven with envy, unknowing and misconception. an exposed back is an easy target. i rarely wore that red silk shirt afterward, but i kept it until yesterday, if only as a reminder.