Our book, Jewish Luck, delves into memories. And memories have a concrete existence in the "stuff" we choose to carry with us. Alisa preserves those memories on one floor of her home while another floor reflects a more modern Swedish decor. In her London apartment to which she commutes from Sweden, I'm guessing there is little from the past. When Vera moved to the Cayman Islands, she started fresh and created a home that reflects her new life. Both women like decorating a lot more than I do. Yet, I have an existential dilemma that has become a decorating dilemma. I’m a little worried that if I continue holding on to my memories in the form of "stuff", I will feel like an insect preserved in amber.
Harry and I enjoy a certain entropy in our home. It is a cozy and colorful setting for our lives. However, lately, it strikes me that the bedrooms of our adult children have become shrines to their childhood. Maybe this is my way of being in denial that this part of our life has passed. My daughter, age 23, seems perfectly content in her apartment uptown. Years ago, Maya packed up her childhood, separating treasures to put in the basement and unwanted remnants to put in the trash. My 27 year old son is in his tenth year living away from home. He had a brief, sweet interlude of a year back in Minneapolis, and is settled in Chicago. He has given us his permission to "repurpose" his room (Meryll taught me that phrase.). My husband is using the “sunroom,” which holds an average temperature of 50 degrees in the winter as his office, and is reluctant to take over my son’s room. I understand.
I was thinking about my childhood home. Meryll’s regal room was maintained after she left, but five years later when I left home, my parents sold the house, gave away my cat, and moved into a luxurious condominium where my new room was the "guest room" with a daybed. They certainly were ready to move on with their lives. I admire how they were able to make major moves in their life, building a house of their own across town and moving to Texas briefly. Then my Mom needed no urging to sell her house to move to a wonderful senior residence in Encinitas, where she already felt at home following her winter sojourns there. Time marched on and my mom had no problem adjusting to the new challenges of each phase.
Time moves far too quickly but leaves traces that can be found behind a child's dresser. Isaac moved out two years earlier than expected for a remarkable boarding school with small classes and great mentors. It took me a long time to thoroughly clean his room, but when he left for college, I finally did, collecting all the memorabilia on the floor and discovering I had a perfect time capsule.
Last month Meryll and I traveled to Israel to be with our cousin, Lisa, as she and her husband Giora (our webmasters) celebrated the wedding of their oldest child, Maytal. The night before her marriage, her brothers, sister and parents serenaded the bride-to-be as she went to sleep. The wedding day was replete with lots of tears and joy. The day after the wedding, Maytal’s brother claimed her room with its balcony and rooftop access as his own. Carrying his work out as efficiently as a military task, he boxed up her belongings and deposited them by the door. Lisa actually appreciated that it happened this way, saying it made the transition easier.
I love having adult kids and it’s time to let go of their childhoods, as they have.
I don’t have much patience for decorating, but I need to visually and completely step into the present, and let go of the past. I don’t need a shrine to their childhood, and neither do they.
I’m so interested to hear how you readers have handled this change.