The cut

You. Item. Do I need you? Can I keep you? Toss you? Not imagine ever doing without you?

Every time we move, we have this conversation with our things, especially with those things we have once loved, or started to or hope to, a one day maybe relationship, a wistful once connection or one on pause.

Helping some people move this weekend was for me carrying, packing, driving, unpacking: boxes, slippery garments, bags. But for those who moved, it was a time for heart hardening: 'Don't open it, just get rid of it; they don't fit anymore anyway; too old and beat up; there'll be no space'; and for sudden sentiment: 'This was my mother's; I've been saving these for...; this reminds of the time...; I don't know if I'll ever...but I had hoped to...; you can never have too many...; I can't decide between...'

In each move, each object asks, 'How much do you care about me?' and the question put that way, we find ourselves on the spot: 'I think we've got a future together' or 'It's over; shove off.'

It's not so much that our goods define us as that we define ourselves against the things we have, things acquired deliberately or invested from the beginning with significance, or things that collect on us like barnacles on a ship's hull, detritus, or most often, things that we've hoped to start something with but haven't.

Each box I lifted today was not just Daja's or my son's but, in a way, mine also, and in a strange fashion, each spoke to me: 'You have as much and more, Peter, which will have to dealt with. Each box represents hard choices, Peter. Have you made yours? Not moving books today, Peter, but think about your heavy laden shelves.'

But, not moving soon, I can quell the voices, but one day, move I must, and then...?  If not me doing the choosing, and boxing and lifting and disposing, who?

Meanwhile, here you all are around me: books I remember from the fly leaf or first page; the tools I'm really going to fix that door with; the shirt (sure, it's frayed at the collar) that has the nice stripe, the hose nozzle I'm sure to use as long as I have a garden, pen collection. Who's the king of things? I am, of course; and we're all happy, aren't we? Sure, we are.

I just bought a Bluetooth speaker that sits in my hand like a silver egg and produces surprisingly round sound. There may be use for it in my evening classes and evenings out on my porch. And it's got that nice heft. You, speaker, I think I'm a little in love with you. One day, though, I have to warn you, you may be superseded as my cassette players have been.

But wait, I still use those players. Has nothing gone? Are all of you still here, still loyal to what was once alive between us?  No wonder moving feels less like winnowing, a blithe tossing in the air with the wind making the pick, and more like culling, a pointing to the abject objects which are to be taken at knife point to the pit.

Eventually, of course, fatigue at the sheer quantity and bulk of what has to be moved makes it all stuff puree that we can eventually readily pour away half of, and coldly wish we could flush the rest. Ah, a life of just a few, very few, very portable things. But wouldn't we then start again to fall in love, our hearts being empty and flappy. I would: "Hey, you, let me look closer at you. You're quite attractive and you make me think of something. I've got room in my pocket. Climb in.'