Revisions by Amy L. Kratz (Guest Blogger)

It’s become a trend moving from a big home to a smaller one and keeping it comfortable. It’s highly popular among young people, because of expense.

You can’t imagine how much of your life must be considered to get to the point of an actual plan to condense it into a smaller space. Thinking about moving from a home with a lot of space and things, to a home with less than half that space means sacrifice and getting rid of your precious things. Things that take up a great amount of space in your home and also within your psyche and entwined in identity.

I used to only own things out of necessity and then all of a sudden that changed. I can remember the moment it happened in May 1998, when my mom died in a tragic car accident and she left me a wonderful gift; her home and everything she loved in it. That gift became my own beautiful, difficult, comfortable, complex, sad, and wonderful home and burden.

I was living in Minneapolis, I was 33, in a spacious apartment with my girlfriend, and together we owned four rooms of things and three cats. I was thinking about buying a home there. I loved the rhythm of that city… it was poetry to my senses.

That’s when life took a horrible, unsettling turn, one that in the end was probably a blessing in disguise. It seems fitting to write this in honor of my mother, her hard work, the gifts she gave me, and the need to revise one’s life. The 20th anniversary of her death looms over me while I sit in my comfortable yet smaller condominium that I bought last year.

I was dragged into a world of amazing HOME OWNERSHIP and all its joyous responsibility and a deep well of grief, both of which I had never experienced before. In this grief I couldn’t comprehend selling the only home that our mom, a working, single mother actually bought on her own. I had great respect for her hard work, sacrifice, and her love of this beautiful home, one that she took from rags to riches. She was a budget decorator but her home looked as if it should be in Home & Garden magazine. Ironically, it was sad and comforting, all at the same time.

For years my mom and I poured love, thousands of dollars, blood, sweat, and tears into that wonderful home, but I finally had to make a choice: Did I want to go broke and continue to need a roommate to stay afloat, or did I need to sell this home that I loved? That choice fermented for many years. Finally, I realized that getting rid of things was painful and necessary. I thought long and hard and then three years ago decided to sell it.
   
It was a place of family gatherings, beautiful gardens, good memories, and three floors of things. There were lots of things they all had attached meaning and symbolism, etched on my soul. On the other hand many of them sat in an attic for 19 years, a literal wasteland of forgotten memories. I became the keeper of the memories of our lives through old things, some passed down through generations. I had to come to terms with this, though: the home was big, old, and overwhelming.

I finally just said to myself, “They are just things!” This is a mantra taught to me by an old friend also gone from this earth. Bonnie used that to get perspective on big and complicated life issues; meaning that things can’t have power over you. She was right, and I began living that philosophy.

Once I could actualize that concept, I could toss things, give things away, and sell collections of things, and move on. I realized I had to stop thinking of everything as a thing that my mother struggled to build, or buy, or how hard she worked to make it happen.

I kept some things which were important, gifts, or things I just enjoyed. My revision was shedding the past and living life on my terms. It was just another lesson in life edits.

------------

This blog post was curated and/or edited by The Ardent Reader, Esther Hofknecht Curtis, BSOL, MSM-HCA. The views expressed in this blog post are those of the guest blogger. Visit www.parrotcontent.com for more information.

Book 86: Home by Toni Morrison

I’m breaking protocol by putting up this post before the Smyrna Library Book Discussion Group gets their fair input, but oh well. Hopefully they don’t bother to follow this blog.

Although I haven’t always loved the subject matter of Toni Morrison’s books, I usually get caught up in her brilliant, artful style of writing. She is usually able to carry my attention quite easily because she keeps things interesting. She is an incredible storyteller.

In “Home,” Morrison didn’t disappoint me. The book had its oddities - for one thing, I didn’t like the beginning or the end - it felt as if I entered the room when a TV show had just begun, and I missed the introduction, then never figured out how it ended. And yet, this is why I say Tony is artful. She is able to use the style of her writing and the story in order together to convey a feeling.  As a result, I felt like the characters were in limbo the entire time, and in the story, they were. I was supposed to feel confused and lost, because they were, too.

“Home” is the story of a Korea veteran and his sister, the last members of a dying, poverty-stricken family. Their story is one of survival, separation, trauma, and finally, being reunited. It was not a pleasant story, but did accurately portray one sibling’s love for another.

I really enjoyed this book, but had to re-read certain chapters several times to really “see” what Morrison was trying to convey. A good read for just about anybody. Hope you’ll pick it up.