StuffED!

After six months of living out of three suitcases (plus carry-on) I have be reunited with my STUFF. It's a day I've been alternately anxiously awaiting and dreading. As you may well know, I seem to have a complicated relationship with my STUFF. Finding a space for my STUFF was a large part of the apartment hunt, and even as I cut tape, open boxes and try to organize, I feel comforted and suffocated. I can't help but feel that if I've lived half a year without it, none of it can really be that necessary. Yes, I like my framed highly complex woven silk textile from the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan- it reminds me of my lovely trip there- but I don't need it. Even before everything was carried up the stairs by the moving company, I'm already dreading the day I'll need to re-box it and schlep it all out. I'm still digging around looking for the transformer so I can plug in my 110V massage chair- a decadent and thoroughly enjoyed item no doubt- but the world wouldn't end if I didn't own it. I was just giddy to pull out the handmade fair-trade puppets and play with them- so many items I could list here- countless pieces of wall art, piles of clothes, boxes of dishes- maybe once everything is in it's place and nicely tucked away and I can actually see the floor again the weight of the STUFF will not overwhelm me. Not until the next time I need to pack it up-

I watch my peers here in Jerusalem with envy- for them, stuff seems to come and go with so much more ease. I still feel incredibly lucky that I had my shipment from Bangladesh to Israel included in my previous work contract. I'm happy that I don't have to start from scratch- or three suitcases. But I can never seem to shake the feeling that for one person, I own too much. But selling it all off doesn't seem that appealing to me- not quite yet. There is still something freeing in the feeling that the choices I made are not as controlled by the quantity I own but rather the quality of my relationships and the improvement of my spirit. Even as I write this, and how weighted I feel with my STUFF, I guess it's never really stopped me from going anywhere. Maybe I'm doing better with my STUFF than I imagined...