What with the six day notice for Africa departure, I have to crank up the productivity a bit. After three months of doing lovely things like swimming in lakes (okay, I did this again today - how could I resist? Everyone was going), I now have to get myself packed and out the door. Four days from now I'll be... somewhere over Ireland on my way to Amsterdam. The problem is not the actual packing. I have two suitcases on the floor of the basement, each nearly filled. I could be ready to go in an hour, albeit without the pen refills for my crippled person pen that keeps my wrists from hurting.
But the basement... oh, the basement. I want to run screaming from the house when I look at it. When I even think of it. My mom kindly offered to help me today and we worked away at it for a few hours. It looks a bit better. There is space to walk in my bedroom, for example. It's just that I haven't yet resigned myself to the inevitable, which is that I will not finish going through all the boxes of crap that I've thrown down there since I first packed to go to Rwanda in 2002. There are still, I think, about four of them, filled with things like the reusable mug that we all got in college so as not to kill the environment. The memories! How can I throw these things away?
Meanwhile, their presence in my room, clogging up the closet and overflowing into the great room, are strangling me. I just need to get over them. I would, after all, never ever notice if someone stole them in the night.
My dad is also cleaning out his office and eliminating all the books he no longer wants from his previous career. We all took a break and sat around gloomily contemplating all we have left to do and then my mom said, "What we need is another evacuation."
It took me a minute to realize that she was talking about when we evacuated from Liberia in 1990, under warning that the fighting was 30 miles from our house. My mom packed all night and we drove to Robertsfield in the morning, then flew out the next day. We took only what we could carry on or check in on the flight to Amsterdam. Everything else got left, and looted, and sold off to Ivory Coast (so we were told by friends and neighbors). Photos of my brother and I later turned up at a refugee camp in Ivory Coast and someone who knew us saw them and sent them back to us, a bit worse for the wear.
I don't want to go through that again. Not so much for what it did to me, but for the whole WAR aspect.
But it really would be nice if all my junk just disappeared.
My mom offered to stage an evacuation: anything not in boxes by Monday morning gets taken to the thrift store. It's tempting.
But the basement... oh, the basement. I want to run screaming from the house when I look at it. When I even think of it. My mom kindly offered to help me today and we worked away at it for a few hours. It looks a bit better. There is space to walk in my bedroom, for example. It's just that I haven't yet resigned myself to the inevitable, which is that I will not finish going through all the boxes of crap that I've thrown down there since I first packed to go to Rwanda in 2002. There are still, I think, about four of them, filled with things like the reusable mug that we all got in college so as not to kill the environment. The memories! How can I throw these things away?
Meanwhile, their presence in my room, clogging up the closet and overflowing into the great room, are strangling me. I just need to get over them. I would, after all, never ever notice if someone stole them in the night.
My dad is also cleaning out his office and eliminating all the books he no longer wants from his previous career. We all took a break and sat around gloomily contemplating all we have left to do and then my mom said, "What we need is another evacuation."
It took me a minute to realize that she was talking about when we evacuated from Liberia in 1990, under warning that the fighting was 30 miles from our house. My mom packed all night and we drove to Robertsfield in the morning, then flew out the next day. We took only what we could carry on or check in on the flight to Amsterdam. Everything else got left, and looted, and sold off to Ivory Coast (so we were told by friends and neighbors). Photos of my brother and I later turned up at a refugee camp in Ivory Coast and someone who knew us saw them and sent them back to us, a bit worse for the wear.
I don't want to go through that again. Not so much for what it did to me, but for the whole WAR aspect.
But it really would be nice if all my junk just disappeared.
My mom offered to stage an evacuation: anything not in boxes by Monday morning gets taken to the thrift store. It's tempting.
No comments:
Post a Comment