You Can't Take it With You
“To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible.” Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
In Portuguese language class recently, we practiced conversation by responding to question prompts. At one point, the teacher asked each student to describe our favorite material object or possession. My American friend, a not-quite-retired physician who has been living in Spain and Portugal for the past two years with her husband and teenaged son, paused to reflect. She then asked to pass on the question. Thinking her reticence was due to the language barrier, our instructor re-phrased the question, then suggested possible responses, “Maybe your car or your smart phone?” My classmate waved the thought away with a scoff. Our teacher skipped to the next student, a 40-something British man who had been living in Hong Kong for several years with his young family before relocating to Braga. He was also stumped and mumbled something unconvincing about kitchen tools. When my turn came around, I thought back to the items we brought to Portugal from Boise. The first thing that came to mind was the framed photo art I brought to personalize the walls of our rental apartment. “Talvez fotografias de familia?” I hesitantly offered. My suggestion of family photos was met with low energy nods. Someone pointed out that photos can easily be digitized so they might not even qualify as material objects.
Someone cracked that we are all far too deep to respond to such a shallow question. This led to a more serious discussion about the mind set of an immigrant and our willingness to leave most of our belongings behind when we move to a new country. After all, as a group we represent a mix of life stages, household sizes, backgrounds, and nationalities, but we have one obvious thing in common: we had each recently moved to Portugal from another country to experience a new life. It is simply not practical to haul around a capitalist's life worth of stuff when you're starting over on the other side of the globe. Each of us made careful decisions about what to bring along, what to part with, and perhaps what to leave behind for another life chapter. For me, and I suspect for most of us, the process of shedding possessions and mindfully selecting a few treasures was a rewarding step in the process of moving abroad.
About a year before leaving for Portugal, Jack and I decided to sell our family home. Our daughter was completing university in a different state and unequivocally shared that her plans after graduation did not include a return to Idaho. It was bittersweet to say goodbye to the house we had once expected to be our forever home, but as empty-nesters with no extended family nearby, we could no longer justify the expense and maintenance. It was time to simplify, de-clutter, and prepare for an unhindered life, even though we didn't yet know exactly what that would look like. Although we initially moved just a few miles away to the small townhouse we kept as an investment property, this first phase of downsizing served us well. By the time we decided to move abroad the following year, we were already down to our most valued belongings and a few essential documents and furnishings.
Even so, as we prepared to move to Portugal, we looked around our much smaller house and realized we still had way more stuff than we could ever bring on the plane. Many expats and immigrants pay a tidy sum to ship a full household worth of furnishings across the Atlantic by cargo ship. Those that don't expect to return seem to find it well worth the expense. Far be it from me to preach the merits of minimalism but we knew we did not value any of our belongings enough to go to the trouble of all that. Among other reasons, we approached our move abroad as a long adventure but not necessarily a permanent relocation. Our partially furnished apartment in Braga allowed us to travel relatively lightly and still limit the purchases we would need to start over from scratch. We agreed to pare our stuff down to what we could fit into three medium-sized suitcases, two large duffel bags, three plastic storage bins, and one cardboard box for framed art. Everything else, all the belongings we accumulated in the course of more than 30 years together, was sold, donated, stored, or junked. I am not well-versed in the Art of of Swedish Death Cleaning but I think the process may have been a bit like that.
THINGS THAT MADE THE CUT
Checked luggage on flight to Porto:
Flat cardboard box with bubble-wrapped framed family portraits and wall art (mostly Jack's own paintings)
Kitchen bin filled with a few settings of china and flatware, favorite dishes, cooking tools, and a few specialty spices
Two more plastic bins stuffed with bed linens, bath towels, and toiletries (including favorite skin care and hair products plus OTC medications)
Suitcases and duffels: Year-around clothing and footwear including rain boots, sweaters, winter coats, workout clothes and swimwear.
Carry-on bags:
Laptops, smartphones, e-readers, and chargers
Pet food and grooming supplies
A couple of family photo albums and antique books
Jewelry and small keepsakes
THINGS LEFT WITH FAMILY OR IN STORAGE
Our most loved houseplants (Laney adopted them)
Heirloom china and other favorite plates/bowls/cookware
Mementos and keepsakes from childhood/family early years
Bulky art work and sentimental items created by or inherited from family
Non-digitized family photo albums and personal documents
Dining room furniture (Laney has dibs on whatever we don't use again)
A few sports equipment items (the ski gear and mountain bikes we were not quite ready to accept we are probably done with)
We unceremoniously dumped or sold everything else. That means everything once contained in a typical American four-bedroom house with a media room, home office, formal dining room, and what our real estate agent deemed a “well-equipped cook's kitchen.” We also found a new home for all the stuff stored in our oversized garage including both of our vehicles, garden and household tools, plus an assortment of sporting goods as required by an occasionally outdoorsy family living near the mountains.
How does it feel? Cleansing. What do I miss? As far as material objects go, not much. What happens if or when we return to the U.S. to be reunited with loved ones and want to set-up household again? Well, we kept the essentials and sentimental favorites. We get to start over with a clean, uncluttered slate. Rather than dwelling on all the resources I wasted while acquiring those material goods, I am content with the feeling of freedom that comes from having less stuff and more time. Who knows, maybe this path will eventually lead me to understand what Thoreau meant when he said, “The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.”
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