The Things I Lost in the Moves
Lit Up — January’s Prompt: Things we left behind
A suitcase, blue, American Tourister, a gift from my great-aunt to my mother on the occasion of her high school graduation. She meant to travel the world. She became a mother, and having no crib, nestled me into the suitcase, tucked beside her bed. I had it, and the matching travel make-up case so popular “for her” into the late ’70s, for years. It was big, and not practical for modern travel. I moved, and it didn’t.
A dress my mother sewed for me. I see pictures of myself as a little girl wearing it. My mom cut it from a pattern and made each stitch herself. Then she had me try it on and took me outside in the bright, warm heat of an Arizona morning, to take my picture, so she could send a copy to her sister.
I remember the wind whipping my hair in my face. I remember the pull of the fabric against my scrawny legs, covering knobby knees, feeling glamorous, while Mom took my picture. I was the oldest, there were babies. But part of me remembered when it had been just the two of us, and the feel of her undivided focus. But we moved, and babies came, and we moved, and the dress grew tight, and we moved, and it was gone.
A jacket my dad brought back from a work trip with my name on it. A sleepover: a German Shepherd, just a puppy, yet twice my size, dragged it into his dog house. The girl who owned him, afraid of the untrained beast her parent had gifted her, wouldn’t retrieve it for me. The dog nipped at me when I tried. I ran home. There was no help. We moved.
Another dress, a vintage summer dress, white with big pink flowers, from the ’50s, that I think had been handed down from my mother. I wore it and loved it. It reminded me of that first dress, the one she had made for me, that had grown too small. Unpacking at the next place, I didn’t notice at first that it wasn’t there.
My father’s camera. The one my mom used to take my picture. The one he would peer from behind for so much of my childhood. The one I would jostle with my siblings in front of, trying to grab the prime spot in the photo. It used film, like they used to. The advance lever was broken, stuck in place. I had to pull a strip of purple, glossy negatives from the black plastic body, my fingers leaving sticky smears across images that would never be seen. I couldn’t afford to get it repaired. I moved.
Some lids and pots. My mom bought them when she was seventeen, about to set out on her own, and she gave them to me when it was my turn. It was the set I learned to cook in. I still have many of them. I moved, and my boxes were sent to a relative’s basement, and she, cleaning out, got rid of several pieces. One lidless pot stands a constant reminder, a silent sentry to a foolish ache. I moved and took what remained of my pots to a safer place.
We traveled light, always, because any extra weight would cost us money. We didn’t have an attic or garage for my childhood to be stored in. I could keep what I could carry with me, nothing more. Anything that couldn’t be tucked into a corner of borrowed space would have to go. I learned to pare down, to get rid of what didn’t fit, what I didn’t use “enough”, what was broken, what I couldn’t pay to maintain. There were other things scattered to the horizon as we traveled.
But these bring me regret. Or something like shame. Or perhaps this is what is called “nostalgia.” Nostalgia: from the Greek, nostos, “to return home”; algos, “pain.” If I had been more careful, I think. If I had paid more attention. These little pieces of my life, strands long left frayed and unraveling, might bind me up and give shape to something else. Something like understanding.
I am careful when I box things now. I wrap the fragile pieces in layers and surround them with extra cushioning. I take the things, handmade and handed down, and carry them myself. I will not lose the thread of it again.
