baggage

Packing up your life is one of those micro-macro representation experiences.... You find that old ratty t-shirt that you hardly wear, but can't bring yourself to leave behind, you realize what pieces of your daily life you can walk away from, and which possessions make you feel at home, even miles away from anything you've ever known before.  I need to pack up the pages I tore out of magazines a few years ago, which I collage-ed into my dorm room wall at Columbia...  The models' faces are now familiar, and the light shines through trees in ways that make me smile, and it is no longer a stranger holding up a plate, where, written in ketchup, it says "MAKE LOVE".  Over the past few years pictures have been added, post cards from far away places and a card from old family friends of a little girl, running her fingers along a globe, wondering where she might some day go.  I still can't quite wrap my head around where we're all going next.

What can't we go on without?  When trips become too far to bring your things, will you be someone else without them?  Not because you are made up of your material things, but because each of them tells a story about you, reveals a brief glimpse into some faucet of your personality.  Do you become less faceted without your history?  Or is it ok to leave behind some of your old scattered explorations and focus yourself on who you are now,  who you want to be in this moment.  Can you really ever lose those pieces?  I'm more questions than I am answers today.  Maybe I'll go somewhere, away from here, where I can begin to answer them.  For now, though, I think it's alright to indulge in the old memories, smile at the little girl mesmerized by the globe, and send some fond wishes to my once-best friends who I haven't spoken to in months, but whose pictures I still have on my wall.  I think that that's more than alright.