packing. my mother had been hanging on to a set a dishes, silverware, and glasses for me, and today we put them all in boxes. went through the kitchen cupboards and i got the old one of everything we had duplicates of: cutting boards, rolling pins, flour sifters, pie pans, colanders, pepper grinders, orange juicers, ice cream scoops, serving platters, lasagne pans, casserole dishes, and one wooden bowl from the set my grandfather made. ceramic wine glasses my mom bought for her first apartment. big glass jars for "bulk hippie food" and a bunch of tupperware. slotted spoons. chopsticks. two corkscrews. mixing bowls.


"i'm giving you some dishrags," she says, "because some people use them instead of sponges. i never did, but some people do. my mother never did, so i never did, so you probably never did. that's how those things work." and it is. my grandchildren will wash dishes the way my grandmother did.


a box for towels and bathmat, a box for comforter and sheets, a box for photographs, a box for my cds and a box for journals. i can feel the seperation anxiety beginning: i can't bring all my books. which almost means i can't bring any, because how could i choose? better to start with tigana, ishmael, a good dictionary, and an empty bookcase to fill. my cookbooks, of course, and gardening books, and harry potter y la piedra filosofal, because i haven't finished it but should. maybe the lord of the rings and neruda, a writing book or two, maybe some rushdie and dillard and and and see? impossible. but as adam put it, i could at any time be in desperate need for any one of my books. and though the library will almost certainly have lolita and one hundred years of solitude and the bell jar, i don't feel confidant that they'll have the tale of genji or consilience. but maybe they will.


all my clothes in one huge duffel bag, except my fancy dresses and my giant winter coat. and as much as i have far too much much crap, it doesn't seem like enough to be My Life. and yet. two days.