What we keep

I recently moved to my new home in Giverny, which marks the end of what I’m now calling my Vagabond Decade.

Since 2008, when I sold my house in Pasadena, California, I’ve embraced a peripetetic life. In that time, I’ve pitched my tent in more than a few places:  Florence, Italy (at three different addresses). Edinburgh, Scotland. And now, Giverny, France.

For the past decade, I’ve paid for storage units in Pasadena, which nearly broke the bank. Although I sold or gave away more than half of what I owned as I emptied the house, there were some things I just couldn’t part with.

Earlier this year, I made a Big Life Decision: I decided to pack up my things in storage and move to France. I’m no stranger to leaps of faith. I have all my papers in order. I have Skype, WhatsApp, email and a variety of devices to stay in touch with those dear and far.

But this leap would be different. I wanted more than a landing spot. I wanted to make a HOME somewhere.

For much of the past 10 years, I’ve lived in places decorated and furnished with other people’s belongings. I’ve missed MY things: my books, photos, artwork, quilts, dishes, and family heirlooms. And so, this winter, I went back to Pasadena and spent six weeks sifting through what I’ve kept in storage — and learned something about myself.

As I contemplated what would go in the shipping container, I had a nagging thought: WHAT IF the ship sinks or the container slides off the deck? I had heard stories about accidents at sea. A new layer of craziness set in: I started making a pile of what I would take on the plane in my checked luggage — and a tiny pile of what I would put in my carry-on.

My carry-on items came down to this: A Civil War diary that I found in a box of family papers. Photos of my grandfather as a soldier in France during World War I, along with the war letters he wrote to his future wife (my grandmother) and to his mother, who lived in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. A little box of my mother’s favorite jewelry. Photos from my son’s childhood and mine — I’ve really missed not having family photos with me these past 10 years. A rock my son painted for me as a Cub Scout. A little Lalique dish my favorite editor at People magazine gave me as a wedding gift. A clay Scottish piper I bought during my student days at the University of Edinburgh. A cobalt-blue vase that my mother’s mother kept at her dining room window and a journal of her poems that she wrote out for me by hand. A lovely paperweight that my father’s mother kept on her desk. A small pewter oil lamp my father bought for me on a business trip to Antwerp, Belgium. A Christmas photo ornament of my son as a baby.

My most precious things were touchstones of people and places I’ve loved, and they all fit in a carry-on.

In the past 10 years, I’ve purged and sold three houses (two belonged to my parents) that were filled to the rafters with the stuff of our lives. I regret parting with some of it. But I held on to the heart and soul of me — and learned, in the process, that what we keep says a lot about who we are.