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.