Things We Carry

It is a little known fact, though no less true for its obscurity, that I have a secret fear of owning anything that I cannot myself carry.

It is completely unfounded and irrational, and try as I might, I have been unable to deduce the true motivation behind this feeling. It remains, this nagging inner longing to be rid of all things that cannot be picked up in a moment and hauled off to someplace new.

You would think that this would mean that I constantly move around, but I don't. I stay--it is my all too frequent mode of operation--and often I stay wherever I stay far longer than I probably should. But mostly, I think I stay because I tell myself that I can leave anytime, knowing, of course that leaving would require me to manage those things that can and cannot be carried.

Lately, this has come to mind because I am trying to sell a television. It is a perfectly fine television but for two minor flaws: (1) I do not use it, and (2) it is too big, bulky, and heavy for me to carry by myself. (The latter, of course, being its primary downside.)

This past summer, I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and one of its section titles is "The Things We Carried." For some reason, this resonates within me when I begin to consider my own uncanny fear.

In the book, the Price family is flying to Africa because the father is determined to be a missionary. As the family prepares for the flight, they realize very quickly that the amount of luggage that they can take with them is extremely limited. They begin to figure out ways around this: wearing multiple dresses on top of each other, sewing scissors and thimbles into their clothing (ah, for the days before mad TSA screenings!), and stuffing items into their pockets and handbags. They carry their lives with them to Africa--or so they think.

And then, in well-crafted irony, they gradually begin to realize that all of the things they thought they couldn't live without are completely unsuited to their new lives. So many things they carried with them--all for nothing.

I think about that when I think about my own possessions, and I wonder whether there is any meaning at all to be found in having things--in having big things--in having heavy things--in having anything at all that cannot be carried.

Perhaps there is no difference between the things we carry and the things we cannot, only the realization that both share the same quality of meaninglessness.

Or perhaps I am just afraid to put down roots.