Sticky tape blocks the way into the square, cardboard-like chamber.
Life is over for my books, my dishes, and my underwear.
When belongings become belittling, then a move — in or out — is the only breath of fresh air that still helps. As an acknowledged flibbertigibbet, I tend to focus on the freedom clause when I take my collection of things in hand.
Yes, in both hands sometimes. Because that’s where the journey of packing starts to tingle. I used to have a motto: “Everything goes that I have disregarded in a year.”
I’m single.
But even back then, at my very first move out of my parents’ house, that motto was complete nonsense. After all, the classics among books, records, and paintings weren’t made to be tossed out or given away just because you ignored them for a year. After all, these objects brought some joy into my life, and sometimes into the lives of my friends.
We used to talk about the lineup of records and books. “What’s Abba doing here, Christian?” “What got into you? A book by Otto?”
Comments like these are always a good occasion to discuss lapses in taste or impressive acquisitions.
But that’s over now, today and tomorrow. I take each and every object in hand, switch on the filter “Coming along or giving away?” and make the call.
Whoever makes it into the box has a future ahead of it. Meaning, a continued life with me. Whether that’s an advantage for these things or a threat?
No idea, but the thought is tempting: the vase would probably sulk in offended silence, the painting would complain about the lighting in the new home before it’s even hung there.
The move would be full of voices and moods hovering over the boxes.
Ten years ago, I was one of those temporaries in the second-largest country in the world. No, I didn’t make a name for myself as a speed demon in Newmarket or Toronto, but as a temporal provisional.
I was registered as a tourist with an expiry date on Canadian territory.
Six months, then goodbye. Or an OK for an extension.
Of course, in those six touristy years of my made-in-Canada adventure, I bought almost nothing. After all, my suitcase was pretty reluctant to take any more things into its belly.
One suitcase. One life.
That had to be enough.
But then Immigration declared me a permanent resident. I was allowed to stay and settle down. And that’s exactly when this slow, strange behaviour began to take hold. Whoever settles down sometimes sings songs, but they also let themselves go.
Borders start to fall, resistance crumbles, and the doors open wide for things, objects, stuff.
On February 11, 2022, an email fluttered into my inbox and announced, friendly but firm: “Congratulations Mr. Christian Wehrli to become a permanent resident of Canada.”
Then I heard something in me breathe a sigh of relief: the hoarder in me, that type of person who gathers things until they fill a home. That type of person who rakes things together and folds them into a cozy life.
My first purchase? An air fryer. A huge, clunky thing meant to make cooking easier.
But the air fryer was only the beginning. The real expansion came with paper and printer’s ink. On my first visit to Indigo Chapters in Newmarket, the bookstore, I was glad the trunk of my car was well equipped. With emptiness.
When I started the car again a few hours later, the emptiness was gone.
The books had filled every gap I’d been brave enough to leave.
Oh damn, where did my self-control go?
Starting today, the brutal process begins of acting as judge and executioner over my belongings. A role that doesn’t suit me. And yet — it has to be done.
I don’t want to move things from one spot to another just because I “own” them.
It’s going to be a mental and liquid disaster, wiping tears from my eyes with every decision.
The great tearing begins.
First, tearing things apart and sorting them out, then, in the new home, tearing open boxes and being surprised that some things made it to the new address after all.
Naturally, a long period of regret follows, along with plenty of moments of self-reproach over why this or that is no longer around.
But I have to be strong now and see it through.
While moving away.
