NOW AND THEN

Belongings/Belonging/Be longing

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

I have been a gypsy most of my life. Having moved house 45 times since I was 17, now 71. My mom wrote my address in pencil in her address book. Fifty four years of packing and unpacking at such different stages of life. What have I kept? What was important enough to move clear cross the country? Up a four story walk up? Into a 250 sq ft cabin that I would share with a partner? Or into a storage unit (briefly!!!) What really mattered?

I always thought that almost nothing mattered enough to go through all the work of moving it. In 1977, one of those moves was made in a 122S Volvo circa 1970. I walked away from everything I owned that wouldn’t fit in that small adorable red car, stick shift on a long rod coming up from a transmission hump. A stunning blonde wooden vintage art deco bedroom set, oriental carpets, an entire household of beautiful belongings. Off on a new adventure.

What is being a gypsy all about anyway? It is definitely not about accumulation. Those things I have held onto are mostly quite small. Photos of my beloved children, now in their late 30’s- mid 40’s. Cuide a Sus Niños Con Mucho Cariño, one of the only bumper stickers I didn’t plaster on to my blue Volkswagon Vanagon that I owned while living in Santa Fe NM 1990-1993, still on the side of my fridge with magnets. One wood fired salt glazed teapot and four small round teacups that I trimmed, spouted, glazed and fired. This with my first husband, father of my two eldest children. He picked me up hitch hiking in 1977 just outside of Banff. But I digress. Another story for another time.

I do have belongings from my mom after 2019. The antique desk I grew up with, holding some very quirky outdated things; a round flat eraser that rolls with a brush on the end for correcting typing errors. The 16’× 30’ 50+ year old Karistan all wool oriental carpet that I rolled around on with boyfriends during my High School years while my parents slept. And then my kids grew up crawling around on it! After my mom died I moved it, quite unbelievably, three times. It is now on the concrete radiant heated floor of my off-grid house that we are building in Lama NM, 85% done. And yes, it is quite amazing to have it here. Very bittersweet was that first time I rolled it out, complete with the row of almonds that some industrious squirrel had stored neatly all along one rolled edge. Oh dearest Mama, belongings can hold more meaning than the pedestrian. I did weep and laugh as I vacuumed, wondering what she would think about our pumice-crete house in the middle of Carson National Forest. And how my dear little 4th granddaughter would soon be crawling around the very rug her sweet papa crawled on 44 years earlier. So maybe this is where the belonging comes in.

I am done being a gypsy. Finding a deep sense of belonging here in this small mountain Norther New Mexico community. And finding new ways to meet and embody the longing for a purposeful life. A life of contributing to the well-being of others. The longing to be proximally close to family again. This story has wandered here and there. Now and then. It’s what we do as humans. We have belongings, a deep need for belonging, and all our universal human longings.