I’m Moving

The thing I have the most of is paper.

I’m in the process of moving. I’m happy about the move. However, it’s exhausting. The most difficult part for me is sorting out what really needs to go with me and what really doesn’t need to go.

One does not realize just how much stuff one has until one decides to move it all.

I’m not a pack rat – or at least I never thought of myself as one. I have no problem giving something away or throwing things out. I am really not attached to material things. Really, I’m not.

The thing I have the most of is paper. Uuugghh! Every time I’ve had a new or creative idea during the last 50 years, I wrote it down.

I have parts of songs, some song titles, pieces of poems, musicals with no music, lyrics with no tunes, stories with no endings, characters with no names, names that belong to no one, book cover designs that have no book written for them yet. Movie synopses, plays with undeveloped plots, paragraphs of talks and keynotes for a variety of causes, ideas for comedy monologues, sketches for quilt blocks, a single phone number or address on various colored napkins and no idea to whom this information belongs, and, thank you speeches for awards I have not been nominated for, yet.

Originally, I hired this guy whose company will cart any thing – and, I mean any thing – away and recycle or otherwise get rid of it for you. I told them with the EXCEPTION of my clothes, my computers and printer, my inverter table, my rebounder, my microphones, my costumes for my domestic violence show, my laminator machine, my rice cooker, my egg poacher, my Vitamix, my juicers, my sewing and quilting stuff, my wigs, the photos of my children, my crystals, and my water filters – take it all away! Done!

Then, one of my daughters told me to rethink giving up so many of my books, photos and mementos that might have sentimental value.

President and Mrs. Carter and Me

Originally I wasn’t planning on bringing the photo with the carters. When it was taken, I was having a bad hair, a bad make-up and a really bad clothes day.

My daughter persuaded me to bring it with me. I guess one never knows when one might need a favor from the government and have to prove to a judge that, “I know ‘people’!

Tagged: Autobiography, Black woman, Life, Memories, Moving, President Carter, Thoughts, Wambui Bahati