Mementos, Boxes, and Some Advice

Tags

clutter, mementos, minimalism, moving, souvenirs, travel

They were so cute and innocuous at the beginning. When I first started traveling, I collected little knick-knacks from all around the world – miniature Greek vases, blown-glass penguins, and way too many little plates with Fox Glacier, the New York City skyline, or Dutch windmills etched and painted and stamped all over them. I was even on an animal kick for a few years; I bought a felt camel in Abu Dhabi, a carved wood llama from Peru, a leather giraffe in Tanzania, and a wooly sheep figure from Patagonia. My shelves and other furniture were soon housing a menagerie, and I felt like I was living in a trinket shop.

I’m not a clutter fan; I like my rooms (mostly) spare and my surfaces (mostly) bare. When I got tired of all the little tchotchkes, I cleared many of them away (into boxes … mistake!) and began buying fewer, but bigger and nicer, things: a rug, a wall-mounted kudu head made out of paper, an Alpine cowbell, a chief’s basket, larger pieces of art and, my favorite, a Buddha head from Tibet. I carefully selected only one thing on each trip, and it either had a function or added some artistic value to my home, reminding me every day of some of the fascinating places I’d been.

But if there is ever a time to reassess one’s acquisitiveness, it is before and after a whole residence has to be stuffed into boxes. The prayer wheel made the cut (good karma), but the Delft dishes did not. The Mongolian yak rope is just too cool to ditch, but the Ghanaian coasters had to go. Some of the bigger things are making my new house feel like home, but I remain overwhelmed by the smaller stuff emerging from boxes, some packed months or even years ago. I wince every time I encounter another little “gift” of packing paper wrapped around some small, unknown object.

When we prepared to leave Chicago, we rented a dumpster and pitched pound after pound of household junk inside, and we took anything clean, attractive, or usable to Goodwill. So how did I arrive here in Houston with more boxes of paperweights and tapestries, jeweled trays and woven hats that I hadn’t seen in years? I start the assessments again: OK, the boomerang can stay, but where am I supposed to put this leather drum and that teak bowl? Let’s just say I’ve already found a donation spot here, and they know my face and car well after two weeks in town.

Whether you’re a traveler or not, or a shopper or not, may I suggest you start cleaning your house or apartment out now? It’s really not a fun job, and it’s even less amusing when you’re under the gun and/or your significant other has trouble parting with things (see: Maasai spear). Luckily, in recent years, all I have really wanted to take home with me from my travels are memories and experiences. In many ways, this blog is now my travel memento, a repository for recollections, feelings, and affection for the places I’ve been. Best of all, it will not ever need to be put into or taken out of a box. I don’t ever want to see another box.

Boomerang!

Tags

Houston, moving, New Year, Texas

It’s a warm place (I looove warmth), it offers easy access to a whole Spanish-speaking continent (which I’ve only half explored), the city is now considered the most ethnically diverse in the U.S. (that means great culture, cuisine and more), housing is pretty affordable (I can’t wait to make a true home again), there are real neighborhoods less than 1-2 miles from downtown (urban feel with a little grass on the side), the restaurant scene is hopping (I love to eat out), U.S. flights are almost all of reasonable length (for reaching the kids and other family), overall cost of living is low (and there’s no state income tax), the museums and medical services are of world-class quality (for good times and bad), there is more green space than in any other top 10 U.S. metro area (we need that outdoor fix of walking and biking), and … you get it: we are pretty damn excited about our next home.

Ten months ago, I moved halfway across the U.S. from Chicago to Washington, DC, and now, with great excitement, we are making a wide U-turn and heading back to the Central Time Zone. Not to our original city, but to a whole different terrain and personality: Houston, Texas!

I know lots of you are groaning “ugh … I was expecting something really great!” Well, we think Houston is really great. Like any place, big swaggering Texas has its negatives, but this move I am focused on pure positives, like all those things listed above. Add in the fact that Houston was the site of my very first real job assignment decades ago, and the place where I met my future husband, and we feel like winners to have scored a great job (for my husband) back in the Lone Star State, which I lauded on the blog a few years ago, incidentally.

Less than two months from now, I’ll be unpacking another truck, and soon after, I’ll be selling you all on my new locale. You will like Houston when I’m done with you! Meanwhile, I’m off to Cuba this week to start off my year in another warm place, trying to put a rough 2016 behind me.

Happy New Year to all!

Out with the Old, In with the New!

Tags

change, moving, new horizon, travel, Weekly Photo Challenge

Is it the nature of things (or simply me and my itchy feet?) that just as I have (semi-happily) settled into my newest environment that I should suddenly find ahead of me a tantalizing new horizon? Its confirmation awaits the final details … stay tuned until after the holidays on this one!

Meanwhile, 2016 – an annus horribilis for me in many ways – is nearing an end. The year started in a fine way, with a trip to Bogota and Cartagena, Colombia, followed soon after by a much-needed solo trip to Nicaragua. Things were looking good – back-to-back Latino-flavored trips in my favorite kind of weather – warm!

Unfortunately, the latter getaway was bookended by (much) less relaxing journeys to take care of my ailing mother. February/March followed up with a relocation from long-time home Chicago to less-than-eagerly-anticipated Washington, DC., and the beginning of multiple back-and-forth drives between those two cities, usually with elderly dog in tow, for the next few months.

I did get a few kicks out of hoodwinking many of you for April Fool’s Day, and I also escaped to Aspen, Colorado, for a glorious string of days in the mountains, even as I struggled with sleeplessness (so not me!) in a bad bed, myriad frustrations in a tiny apartment with non-functional appliances, and a decline in health and fitness in my new urban lifestyle.

Summer brought another series of trips to and from the new DC residence, the old house in Illinois, and the parents’ house in Pennsylvania, but again, the stress of this peripatetic lifestyle, and worries about aging parents and dog, were salved by one of the most amazing trips of my lifetime – to Mongolia – chronicled in an embarrassment of posts in August. Two little side trips to Seoul rounded out that month quite nicely!

I bitched about DC more than I should have (in spite of landing a great new job at American University), lived vicariously through my daughter and her stint in Ghana this fall, and then finally came to terms with Washington by late autumn, just in time to contemplate leaving for greener pastures!

I plan to enjoy my family and our soon-to-be-listed home in Chicago over the holidays and just afterward, I will pop into Cuba for a week before facing head-on the next wave of changes about to wash over me. It’s all good – this time I’m up for the ride! Can’t wait to tell you more about it!

 

 

Past over Present

Tags

Dart River, Glenorchy, jet boats, Mount Aspiring National Park, moving, New Zealand, parent care, rough spot

In the last 60 days, I’ve traveled a lot, passing through nearly every state from the Midwest to the Southeast to the mid-Atlantic U.S. and back. I flew nearly 5000 miles, drove over 2000, and walked hundreds. It is not the kind of voyage you would be interested in reading about, however. I will simply tell you that it involved a sudden resignation from my job, a frantic apartment search, a sick mother and hospitals and surgery and doctors galore, a snowstorm and canceled flights, 1 ½ days to pack up my life as I know it, and a chronically bleeding dog. Oh, and the crappiest birthday I’ve ever had was in there somewhere (the day the dog decided to pile on, in fact). But let’s not dwell on my two months from hell – let’s go back in the past, to New Zealand, instead!

On the South Island of New Zealand, the Dart River twists and turns, snaking out of Lake Wakatipu and through Mount Aspiring National Park, a collection of massive snow-covered peaks tumbling down into milky blue glacial waters. We leave the small town of Glenorchy aboard a powerful jet boat and fly across the water, mouths agape at the peaks, valleys, and pounding waterfalls surrounding us.

The boat skims the shallow water, bouncing high and eliciting screams of both fear and delight; our stomachs leap and then thud as our driver spins and cuts into his own wake to give us one of the thrills New Zealand is known for. We’ve skipped the bungee jumping and parasailing, so today’s outing is but a taste of Kiwi adventure mania.

An hour or two later, we disembark on the shores of a primeval beech forest and walk single file along a narrow trail into the woods. Our guide recounts the Maori history of the ancient and unspoiled surroundings; the adults listen eagerly while the kids jostle for space on the thin path, raising my heart rate more than the one-man suspended bridge over a 250-foot deep ravine does.

The return trip is no less thrilling. For the four adults and six kids on that ride some fifteen years ago, this was the highlight of our time in the Queenstown area. Mount Aspiring National Park and the Dart River have a brooding, mystical quality (one of the reasons parts of The Lord of the Rings and some Mount Everest movies were filmed here), and the jet boats are a pure high, an adrenaline rush of speed through cloud-muted sunshine and aquamarine waters – the memory a great antidote to my recent low times.

* Good news! Things are looking up. I’ve moved into a new place in Washington, DC, just in time for the advent of spring weather. I’m happily adjusting to urban living, my mom is doing better, and the dog has stopped seeping (don’t ask)!

Seasons of Life

Tags

aging parents, life stages, moving, seasons, seasons of life

Spring is around the corner, but my life has taken a nosedive; instead of feeling the impending euphoria of a climb out of winter, I’ve seen my days get metaphorically shorter and darker in a fall-like plunge. I’ve been in the same two winter outfits for a week even though I am now on a balmy island off the coast of Georgia. I have no idea when I will get back home, wherever that is right now.

A week and a half ago, I left the Chicago area on a frigid day and flew to Washington, D.C. for an apartment-hunting trip, just in time for a winter storm with sub-zero temperatures and snow, sleet and ice, then rapidly rising temperatures, heavy rain, and all the not-so-pretty melted snow, slush, and road salt.

The surroundings matched my mood – a smudge of worry, then a storm of panic and uncertainty. After making a very hasty decision on a place to live for the next year, I suddenly needed to change my plans. I was not going home to my dog or to help pack up for our move across the country. I was flying to Georgia, to a hospital complex, to try to figure out what was wrong with my mother – a bright and active woman who had led book discussions, played competitive bridge, and socialized non-stop a few short months ago.

I am happily in the full summer of life in general. A month ago, I had a job that let me travel widely several times a year, a well-loved house in a charming little village, a comfortable and stable lifestyle, and healthy kids and parents. I did know change was in the wind; my husband had been pursuing a position in Washington, D.C. for some time, but our idea was to ease into the move. I planned to keep my job, staying on in the house with our older dog, traveling on weekends (and longer when the school year ended) to be with my husband. It sounded like such an exciting adventure – a small apartment to test out urban living, and proximity to the eastern seaboard and friends and family.

More sobering than the temporary darkening of my own days is the realization that my parents truly are in the winter of their lives. I just wrote recently about the invincible summer I am lucky to have inside me, so right now my hope is that my optimism and (usually!) good cheer will cast a ray of sunlight into my parents’ lives for a bit. I just wish I could do it in something other than my waterproof snow boots!

[With my own changing of seasons, my posts may be few and far between for a while, but please know that I am slowly reading and enjoying many of yours even if I merely hit the “Like” button!]