Unpacking a Story

We have begun a new chapter in our lives, and that involves some tearing out and rebuilding. The ugly bathroom was the first to go.  In the process we uncovered some interesting "artifacts" left behind by the previous owner.  We puzzled over how these had come to be trapped in the walls or behind the plumbing. We will never know the story behind them as their owners have since passed on, an it is their story to tell.  I suppose one could make up a story involving a bullet and some carefully labelled nail files.
In the midst of the demolition, our long awaited shipment arrived from Kuwait. The shipping company, who I will not name here, was cagey about its whereabouts for months, and then suddenly it arrived on our doorstep. Way too tired to start unpacking, and not knowing where I'd put the long forgotten items anyway, I went to bed.

I woke up to find that Jon had unpacked and displayed my dearest memories for me.  They are my collection of decorative pieces picked up over the years and lugged from place to place. They date back to my first teapot, bought on my limited budget during my student days in Gloucestershire. Some are wedding gifts or gifts from students in Brazil. None of the pieces are large, because of having to be transported, and few are expensive, since I expected to lose a few when they fell into my toddlers' hands. I had begun to collect a painted egg from every country I visited until my one-year-old thought they were toys to be thrown around. A few of the wooden ones survived.

I was amazed at how good they all looked together in one display. Despite my obvious taste for color and pattern, they are very different in styles and reflect very different cultures. However, each has meaning to me, and there is a story behind each one. A friend once described the process of moving as packing and unpacking your life.
I questioned my husband on the location of some missing pieces I knew I had packed.  He suggested I might have put them in with something else and sure enough I found some hidden treasures that I had stuffed into a jigsaw puzzle box. I'm not sure that was such a good idea, because it is easy to miss something when sifting through 2000 puzzle pieces. But that is where I came upon the pictured conglomerate above.  And here is the story that lead to those separate memories being fused together.

The shipping company in Kuwait had quoted us a cost (one which our employer would not cover) of $3000 to move our personal items to the US. Under the misunderstanding that we could reduce that cost by half if we reduced the size of our shipment, we had begun to sell off as much as we could and repack items together to save space. I got rid of half my puzzles, and kept only those of places I had traveled to: London, Venice, Rio. Then I found all those small items I had picked up in bazaars in Eastern Europe and off the beach of the Marshall Islands that would fit inside the boxes with the pieces. The small Russian stacking doll had been a perfect choice when we lived in Bulgaria in 1996.  Then Russian crafts could be picked up cheaply at local stalls outside the empty shops. They made perfect gifts for family back home, and could easily fit in a suitcase. Even better, they were unbreakable and could be played with as a toy. Over the years, and five moves later, it is still with us. In my collection of painted eggs, I found one made of wax. It was a rather ugly candle, and I can't remember where it came from, but Jon liked it and it didn't take up much space.

The movers arrived and totally ignored all our pains to reduce the cubic volume and charged us $3000. There was nothing we could do but pay up and hope we didn't offend any port authorities enough to lose our boxes altogether.   A few days later we left the country, right before record high temperatures hit Kuwait.  That July they claimed the temperature had reached 62°C, or 143°F, the highest ever recorded on earth and still debatable.  I'm guessing our boxes were still sitting in a warehouse at the port at that time.  So the candle melted together with the puzzle pieces of London and the Russian stacking doll.
Displayed on my shelves I have pottery from Windsor, Istanbul, Sofia, Barcelona, Jerusalem and Warsaw.   I have hung on to gifts from Brazilians and Marshallese. And Jon's shelf now contains a bullet to go with his Scottish hip flask. My life unpacked is a potpourri of delicious reminders of where I have been. I could just frame my passport, but then I might forget the stories of my life.

Homecoming

I still don't quite understand the Homecoming tradition. I know that it attempts to promote school spirit around a football game, but why there is a coronation and why middle-schoolers dress in wacky costumes is not clear to me. I am trying to figure out how I, as a teacher, and how my son, as a senior, fit in.
We are celebrating 'coming home' by moving back into our Minnesota home and looking forward to fall and winter festivities surrounded by family and friends.

An unexpected bonus of moving back to the US was having old friends be able to come and visit. These are friends we made overseas, but have the Midwest as their home base. We reunited with some Kwaj friends and their three year old son. Fortunately the weather was warm enough for us to visit outside and enjoy the balmy end of summer season. The only down fall was the dropping walnuts. Our yard has three huge trees that drop their nuts the size of golf balls with every gust of wind. The nuts hit the roof, rain down on cars and patio furniture and cover the ground. Any activity outside becomes one of "duck and cover", always alert of falling nuts. Sitting outside becomes hazardous, and I have been struck on the head while sipping a glass of wine.
These conditions didn't deter our visiting three year old. He  promptly donned a bike helmet he found in the garage and continued to explore the back yard. There were nuts to toss, squirrels to chase, seedpods to pop and a garden with cherry tomatoes just ripe for the picking. Inside the house was a basement and an attic with endless possibilities for finding hidden treasures.

He discovered the delight of fishing off the dock and brought back my few years here when my sons were that age. They enjoyed the same delight in catching an ugly old bull head and then being afraid to touch it. I found myself once again doing the unwelcome job of de-hooking the fish.
At that time we had moved back to the US exactly because we wanted our boys to experience the simple pleasures that come with growing up in a small town in the Midwest.
So why did we leave again and take our family globe trotting, in and out of three high schools on different continents? In the backs of our minds we did have a nagging concern that we were depriving them of a wholesome childhood at the expense of our wanderlust.

My friends have now left with their little boy and travel half way across the globe to their home far away and I ponder this anew. In some ways all of my sons' life was a series of field trips. Trips out to explore new geography, to learn of the history and culture of their home, to see the living world around them. Then traveling back to the US each summer was yet another field trip to visit the people and history that make them who they are today.
I know at least one of my sons is tired of these trips, that like school field trips, are more about learning something new and less about pleasure.

Wherever we are, childhood is about learning, growing, exploring and pushing back boundaries. My children certainly have had the opportunity for that both home and abroad.  And while my boys have never had the chance to be crowned Homecoming king, they do understand the meaning of Homecoming. We come home to appreciate our roots before heading back out to take in some more of what the world has to offer. My oldest was described as "not a risk taker" at the age of three. Now I can see him very easily going on a scientific exploration of Antarctica!