When I Leave My Home: Love, Loss, and Continuing Bonds

photo by wayneandwax, flicker.com

photo by wayneandwax, flicker.com

I arranged glass canning jars on the wooden shelves in the cellar to please my eye—apricots between red cherries and crimson tomatoes, purple red plums next to pink tinged peaches. A rainbow of jams filled the higher shelves. We bought a freezer for the garden bounty and a washing machine for sanity. After the romance of wet diapers hanging on racks by the wood stove ended, we added a dryer, too.

When I leave this 200 year old home where I’ve lived since 1973, only the memory of this cellar will go with me.

Along with drying firewood, the barn houses Vic’s orange Kubota tractor with a bushhog, rototiller, wagon, and front loader, plus shelves of oils, greases, saws, manuals, and jars of screws and nails. The end of the barn near the vegetable garden holds my garden tools, tomato cages, and the picnic table in the winter.

These will left behind as memories, too.

The house we bought in 1973

The house we bought in 1973

The house holds little of objective value except the year-round sunset views and distant vistas over Seneca Lake Valley. Most of my clothes should have gone to Goodwill long ago. There is Vic’s collection of philosophy books that one son wants and my shelves of nutrition, exercise, and women’s health that will go to the library book sale since current information is on line.

When it’s time to go, I will take Rumi, Rilke, and Hafiz, Mary Oliver and Sharon Olds. I’ll take The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, even though the title says Poems for Men. I’ll take Naomi Shihab Nye and Walter Benton. I’ll take my dream journals and personal notebooks. They can be burned with my body, but until then, they hold the stories of my life. I’ll take Plato and Plotinus, for old time’s sake. I’ll take my favorite mythology and goddess books and the works of Anthony Damiani, Pema Chodron, Marion Woodman, Paul Brunton, the Dalai Lama, and other wise teachers who will help me reach my end in peace. I’ll take family photo albums even though I stopped updating them in 1997. I hope to finish that project before I leave.

A new roof for the old lady, 2012

A new roof for the old lady, 2012

I’ll take my computer that mysteriously stores recent photographs, images, stories, and personal contacts I hold most dear. Before I leave, Vic’s photo negatives and slides will be sorted, labeled, and digitalized, but I am not yet ready to open those wounds.

I’ll take precious pieces of pastel silk to cover the altars I build in my new life and take the orange and gold silk I received in India to be my shroud. I’ll take the photos on the walls, most taken by Vic with the beauty of his discerning eye, and give the rest to sons and friends. I hope there will be room in my new home for the wall of family photos that Vic framed and hung with love.

I will take memories and images of a life lived full with a family of four who loved and fought and stuck together. I will take my tears and the pain of leaving this piece of earth that held and supported my body and heart, especially after Vic’s death. I will remember fields of lupines that we planted and collect the seeds to give to friends. I will take a few stones from the stream, a pocket full of white and red oak acorns, and a turkey and crow feather for the altar I will build to honor my new life.

When the time comes, not too soon, I pray, I will weed the garden and inhale this loamy earth. Then I will walk away and not look back, grateful that we had the audacity to save this crumbling house and protect the forest and fields with a conservation easement. Grateful that the oaks and hickories, pines and maples will live to their natural old age and offer solace and joy to another family.

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What will you take when it’s time for you to leave your home? For more stories about my home, see My Hector Home, My Mysterious Home, or Coming Home.

12 Comments
  1. I was confused by something. You say the only memory you will take is the one of the cellar. Then at the end of the list of other things you will take too (in memory) “These will left behind as memories too”. I don’t follow.
    The whole piece gave me goose bumps.
    The way you face death is unusual, to say the least.
    Oh, and do you have to take your journals with you? I’d rather we get to enjoy them if we happen to be alive and able to, please.
    Ok, you can weed it of some things. But at least think about that one please. And..one more thing, you have to make copies of the family pictures for your sons and downline before you take them with you.
    I think Vic’s pictures ought to be seen by more people. He had an exquisite eye for beauty. If you ever need help with this work, organizing them, think of me and perhaps I can help in some way.

    Mansfield Lands is the mother earth, well loved.

    You all, your sons and husband, have been an inspiration about how to care for the land, and it in turn has given you(and many)peace, and beauty,
    (and muscles!) in wonderful ways.

    That picture of your old house is startling. Transformation. It is it what things are about.

    I will re read this a number of times. Thank you for writing it.

    • Lauren, this piece is my contemplation of leaving my home/house and moving to another place. I’m not focusing on facing my physical death. So when I say “only the memory of this cellar will go with me,” I mean that I can’t take the cellar or the barn or the Kubota when I move to a new place. I can only take the memories and a few precious things. But good you point out the confusion. If someone wants to keep my piles of journals, they can have them, but I was pointing out that I’ll keep them with me until I die along with photos and my stories. Death comes into the piece, but leaving the house and land is the immediate concern. It will be interesting if others share your confusion. Revisions always possible.
      Yes, Vic’s photos are good. I need to get the slides digitalized. He only showed them once and never wanted to put his energy there, so I can’t imagine making that happen–but who knows what the future brings.
      Thanks for all your ideas. If you read again, and still think it’s primarily about death, let me know.

  2. Of all your posts, this one has moved me the most. Like fingering japa beads, one memory after another, held, released, on to the next. The feeling builds in heart space. There is nothing here to excite the thinking mind; the depth of feeling is profound. Actually, leaves me speechless, contemplating the many years knowing you, Vic, your sons, the land, and the ineffable that this post evokes.

    • Fred, I am deeply moved by your response. This piece felt a little too contemplative, a little too inward looking, a little too based on questions that arise because of mysterious health issues that bring the sense of human frailty and vulnerability as opposed to my usual “I can handle it” stance. Thank you for recognizing this part of me.

  3. Elaine,
    I did not know you were moving soon. (Where are you planning on going?) I’m sure you will take your sense of home where ever you land because are so good at making a house a home, and because you have such strong memories of this place.

    • Not moving soon, but handling this place on my own is a big job. More and more, I contemplate other possibilities, but the house is not for sale and I don’t have a plan, although my mind and heart play with images of attachment and detachment. In any case, I feel how transitory every situation is, even when it’s lasted for 40 years.

  4. Elaine, I hope you continue to find joy and peace and manageability in your current home for as long as you want to be there. When the next chapter begins, I hope you find your way south 🙂

    Love you very much!

    • Love the spring flowers. Loved taking a small part in supporting the 3 protesters who went to jail last night for peacefully standing up against an out of state company that is polluting our Seneca Lake. Love being here now while holding the memories of a life and the possibilities of the future. No plans, but the sense of time and change. Thanks for your love and your invitation. Who knows where life will lead?

  5. I always seem to be following just a few steps behind you, Elaine. I’ve been in a house-emptying frenzy lately having cleared and cleaned up after a few too many loved ones. So I’m down-sizing in a subtractive way. But when I try to think of what will stay or go with me somewhere, it hurts. I can’t consider that yet.

  6. Sweet Woman, I was not confused in the least and I soul understand all that you said and all that was not said. The journey unfolds as you re-imagine “your one wild and wonderful life.”

    It is never completed this letting go. I also went through this process of letting go of our Grace House. I would look at our furniture and the memories would be a tsunami of moments-that Holiday when he sat in that chair and ate on that plate…the sofa where he wept with our Son…that bed that we shared on those sheets… It is like a million little deaths. That is the truth for those of us that loved well and are left behind to somehow continue to love well in all of the long moments left. Here is what I know to be true for me. Letting go of all of those tangible, physical reminders have allowed the memories to become more tangible and real. PLUS memories do not need to be dusted or maintained or insured! I also could not part with my book (I have boxes and boxes of them in storage) or my journals or my art or my photos! I kept feathers and rocks for my alters! Perhaps it is because we know what is important?! I began by packing up what I KNEW I could part with and put it in the “Auction” area. I packed what I thought I could not let go in my “save” area. In the end, after many long hours of sorting over and over, almost everything went to the Auction. I must say that there are brief moments when I think that I miss something only to have reality kiss me and help me remember how grateful I am to not be so weighed down. Holding you in gentle embrace.

    • So beautiful and reassuring. I packed a few boxes of books and gave a few things away. It’s probably time to start looking at what might be available as a living space in Ithaca–not always easy as you know. But a movement, ever so gentle, reminding me to open to what happens next. I know the love and essential memories aren’t going anywhere.
      Sending you love and hopes for the perfect inner and outer home.

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