With all that moving
around, I don’t own very much right now. About a year ago, as I planned for
this most recent relocation, I sold off all the furniture I had taken years to
accumulate and packed the rest of my belongings into storage. I felt as if I’d
been cut loose from something that anchored me in place. Since then I’ve lived
in furnished accommodations—hotels, sublets, shares. The few personal items I wanted
to use—toiletries, clothing, utensils—moved with me in several medium-sized plastic
containers that I could manage myself.
The fact that I have
a storage unit baffles me. What, I frequently ask myself, is in there? And why
do I need to hang on to it? I know a part of the answer: a lot of papers—I’m a
writer and I like to keep what I’ve written. It’s not replaceable. And books
and records and souvenirs—even a box of rocks and shells and geodes—that I’ve
accumulated. The reality is that I could probably leave it all behind and my
life would not be significantly different.
So then, why do I
own these things—the ones I keep and the ones I store—and what does it mean to own
them?