 Ed Garren. By Ryan Gierach. |
I was in Los Angeles over Labor Day weekend. I still had most of my household goods in storage, and it was time to retrieve them and bring them to my new place.
One person's treasure is certainly another person's trash. Nowhere is this more evident than when one moves. When I sold my house, it was laden with 11 years of collecting. My entire family tend towards "pack rat" living. It is the direct result of my parents impoverished childhoods and being young adults in the depression and then living through the rationing and shortages of WWII.
Our entire lives were centered around "saving." Everything from the rubber band around the newspaper, to the cellophane wrappers that bread came in, we didn't throw away anything if it had a possible use.
Part of this is cultural, tracing it's roots back to rural southern life. Decades ago, when I first moved to Miami, I lived in a modest space, one room with a bath behind a garage. A friend came to help me when I moved to a larger studio apartment. He was about my age, but now an administrator with DOT in Miami, living the "Guppie" lifestyle, condo, new two door car, designer dressed, all of which belied his rural West Virginia roots.
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He went into my bathroom to pull things out of the closet. A few moments into the project, he shrieked and then burst into laughter. I went in to investigate and found him with my box of peanut butter jars. "You can't throw them away either can you?", he declared. We both laughed at your southern upbringing, in which each jar, particularly if it had a tight fitting lid, was lovingly washed and saved for summer "canning" of fruits and vegetables, some things are too deeply ingrained to fight.
Last week I attended a workshop on Celtic Spirituality at the church I've settled into here in the Rose City. The workshop was conducted by the retired bishop of eastern Oregon and his wife. Bishop "Rusty" and his wife clarified some things I'd always known, but not as specifically as they expressed it. For example, the difference between "Mediterranean Christianity" and "Celtic Christianity". The former is urban, authoritarian, higherarcial, stratefied and male dominated. The Celts, coming out of a Druid perspective on life, saw God in all things in creation. They were rural, "organic", included women in their leadership, and revered the earth. The word "Pagan" actually means "Person of the Earth." The bishop's wife described herself as a "pagan", a person of the earth.
The workshop went on to talk about how we attach memory to items, and the importance of embracing these tokens of our life as articles which remind us of the major stops on our journey through life.
The workshop also introduced the concept of "Thin Places", those physical and/or mental places where earth and spirit are close. Many people described places in their environment, usually solitary and remote, at which they felt a particular connection to spirit.
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Others described more "ordinary" places as "holy" to them. It was interesting, from Fenway Park in Boston, to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Oprey), folks talked about history and the energy of "place" as being significant to them.
My own "Thin Space" has always been my living room in the various homes I have made. In the Vista Street house, I would often sit in the room and just soak up the vibrations from the sunlight on the colors in the room. It was very regenerative.
During the Christmas season, I had a ritual, which included my friend Sallie Fiske when I could get her to come. I would use only the lights from the tree and decorations. I would put on favorite Christmas music (usually Celtic), and sip hot chocolate while the fire burned, the multi colored lights danced in the room, and my dog would lie on the sofa next to me, head in my lap, gazing at the lights along with me. For me, this was close enough to heaven for this life.
This past week has been spent unpacking boxes which I packed a year ago when I sold that house. I'd forgotten about a lot of these things, tucked away in dusty storage in Valencia. The unpacking of them is interesting. I'm re-creating my old home in a new space, one which will become a new place of reflection and solace. While doing so, the actual dust from Valencia is making me sneeze my head off, a subtle reminder of why I left Southern California in the first place.
 Ed Garren amidst an allergy attack. |
Most pieces recount memories. One, particularly cherished, the hanging oil lamp in my former living room, did not make the trip. When I tried to unscrew the top to clean it, the glass disintegrated in my hand, snapping right off. So, there is nothing to do but recount the day I found it in a dumpster in Coconut Grove (Miami Florida) while walking my dog, and briefly reflect on the homes it has hung in, the moments of my life it has witnessed, and then toss it in the trash.
Such are the moments and lessons of life. Ultimately, we let go, because everything dies, including us.
Stuff is a mixed bag, just like memory. We can be embellished by it, and we can be drowned by it, often at the same time.
I reflect on my year without all this stuff around me. How much did I miss? Was any of it that important? Will any of it be that important once its back up and part of my life?
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Mostly I have to say "yes." The reasons are somewhat layered and evasive, but I think it's mostly habit. Each of these things reminds me of someone who has loved me, that I have been connected to. And in an otherwise lonely world that brings comfort.
But I don't look forward to dusting it.
There are times when regular politics will not do,
and this is one of those times. -- Molly Ivins
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Edward "Ed" Garren, MFT is a Family Therapist, justice activist, former West Hollywood City Council candidate, writer and sojourner.
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He is originally from the Tampa Bay area of central Florida. Ed has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Frontiers news magazine, and other books, including "Out of My Mind", a pictorial memoir by Kris Nelson. He is currently working on a book about Addiction in America.
Ed Garren can be reached, even in hie North Western haunts, at