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                                                                      Sorting

                                                              by Marco M. Pardi

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“Nothing shall seem to me so truly my possessions as the gifts I have wisely bestowed.” Seneca the Younger (5? BCE – CE 65). “On the Happy Life.” (20.4) Moral Essays.

Parting with things came early to me.  One of my earliest memories is of the wild Jeep ride from Rome to the port of Ostia, in December of 1945.  While Americans at home thought WWII was over, the reality on the ground in much of Europe was quite different for many.  My father,  one of the high ranking Italian officers who overthrew Mussolini, was hunted by residual Fascist elements and had gone missing.  My mother, a dual-citizenship Italian-American, was an OSS officer in Rome, hunted by the same elements.  Her immediate superior, James Jesus Angleton, was ostensibly a U.S. Army captain but was in reality the Chief of Station (Rome) for the OSS.  And so it was that, when an extraction opportunity arose, “Uncle Jim” quickly loaded my mother, her English mother, my brother and myself into a Jeep and raced for the port to catch the Swedish ship MS Gripsholm bound for the U.S.   As we careened along the partially destroyed road a poorly secured suitcase flew out of the Jeep and skittered along behind us, vainly trying to keep pace.  I boarded the ship with the clothes I had on and my Italian passport and Birth Certificate, each proudly emblazoned with the Fascist seal – artifacts which would years later bring me grief in trying to get an American driver license in the primitive State of Florida.  

Childhood in the U.S. was a blur of moving; New York to Cleveland, Cleveland to military boarding school in Grand Rapids, Ohio, back to Firenze, Italy, Firenze to Genoa, Genoa to New York-Cleveland, two houses outside Cleveland, and then to Florida.  Schools? Well, that’s another story.

Our move to Firenze,  with an uncertain duration,  included 25 steamer trunks.  My brother and I had accumulated very few possessions;  military school restricted possessions to what could fit in your footlocker at the foot of your bunk.  But my grandparents and mother had acquired large collections of books, authentic Oriental rugs, and original art in various media.  I still have some of this stuff.  In Firenze I had a few toy soldiers.  In fact, when one of them died in battle outside our Firenze garage in 1950, I buried him with full honors.  When I returned there in the late 1990’s I was tempted to try to get the home owner to allow me to find and exhume him.  Requiescat in pace.

One of my mother’s favorite rants was, “I’m going into your room and throw everything out!”  This when she wasn’t threatening to have me deported back to Italy.  I quickly learned to hide certain things in highly improbable places, a skill which would serve me well in later years.  Thanks, Mom.

 My years in the military, and related work refined my minimalist approach to possessions.  “Stationed” at various places, I was constantly on the move, living out of a duffel bag.  That carried through college and grad school, with moves involved there as well.  And, even married with a daughter my personal possessions were slim.  Divorce was interesting; I could clap my hands in the house and get an echo.

In the summer of 1981 my college instructor persona had run its course, and things were heating up elsewhere.  I went into town and bought a used/rare book, antique, and art store, inventory included.  My artist mate and I restructured the store, dumping most of the used books on another bookstore.  She managed the store, took care of the house and our non-human companions, and produced art while I traveled as a consultant acquiring exotic artifacts for the store.  We also used the store to funnel through various items I had acquired in previous years, a sort of high-end controlled estate sale.  We were simply waiting for clearance to come through for the next move.

Did we pack it up when the time came?  No.  She simply had an auction house come in and clear out the store and the house as she was leaving to join me where I had set up.  The proceeds went to a P.O. box.  Our Huskies came with her, and everyone else was placed in a good home.

A few years and some moves later I felt burdened by my wardrobe.  I took several suits, including an exquisite wool Edwardian cut hand made for me by “Mr. Charlie”, my Hong Kong tailor and “left” them in the laundry room of an apartment building filled with people struggling to get by.  Maybe someone got a successful job interview.

Over all those years, and even recently I have looked at various items I have acquired, myself or through inheritance, with the conviction that my daughter and/or my grandchildren would want to have them.  But careful observation and listening continually narrowed that vision until it is all but gone.  Stuff.  What do I know?  I think that phone thing was up to 3G before I quietly asked someone what the hell G stood for.

A good friend of mine has a home about the size of mine, with a three car garage.  Of his cars,  only one can barely fit in the garage.  His entire basement is filled to the ceiling with stuff, almost impossible to walk through.  A mild earthquake would bury the one garaged car.  He has two local rental units, both filled, and a warehouse in another State also filled.

I initially thought he was a hoarder.  But this isn’t any old stuff; it is largely high end, very unusual stuff gathered from “one-percenter” estate sales and exclusive auctions.  He could have kept my store going for many years.  His wife doesn’t know 1/100th of what he has, nor does she care.  His child dreads having to go through it on his death (he’s a few years older than me).  

No,  after examining his purchases and listening to his “this will appreciate in value”, “I got a great deal” pitches I’ve come to the conclusion what I’m really hearing is a deep and profound fear of dying.  I never see him working with or on any of the stuff he has bought.  It comes home, sometimes requiring my help to lift, and goes straight into the maw of his garage or walk-in basement.  I joke with him that burglars could steal half his stuff on Monday and sell it back to him on Friday because he wouldn’t know it was his in the first place. I am convinced this is not the typical hoarding pattern, although it may be a variant of it.  I do think it is some manifestation of a way of trying to nail down future time, as if having stuff to be ready for a future time will guarantee it will be granted to him.     

So what does happen to my stuff after I go behind Door Number 4, and should I care?  I guess relatives will be notified and asked to come through and take what they want.  Sort of a musical stuff game, with the leftovers going to the Salvation Army or Goodwill (insert images of puzzled shoppers here).  No, I won’t be buried with the ceremonial knives made for me by a Berber tribe in North Africa or the huge silver trophy my dog, Vetter, won (spent $300 on restoring it for my daughter, but she told me to keep it).  In fact,  I can’t think of anything I own that would survive a crematory.

An aphorism ascribed to Siddhartha is, “When you want what you have, you will have what you want.”  Makes sense.  And, over time want diminishes.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross had a favorite term for this: Decathection, commonly defined as the withdrawal of one’s feelings of attachment in anticipation of loss.  I do understand the feelings people express after a burglary; partly loss of the items but largely theft of the opportunity to decide one’s own time to be rid of the items.  I was quite urinated when I came down into the parking garage one morning to find an empty space where my heavily modified Austin-Healey 3000 MKIII had been parked.  I almost sat flat on my ass before I could grasp the seat wasn’t there to catch me.  Of course, I re-holstered my semi-automatic, jumped into my other car and drove around St. Louis looking for it.  I have some pictures.  Somewhere.

So one day – or night, the Dark Burglar will come into my real abode, the place where I actually live, and steal me.  And look at all that money I’ve spent going to doctors for restoration, or perhaps to buy more time.  Seems I have more sorting to do.

“A way of life that bases itself on materialism, i.e. on permanent, limitless expansionism in a finite environment, cannot last long, and that its life expectation is the shorter the more successfully it pursues its expansionist objectives.” E. F. Schumacher (1911-1977) Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. 4.5, 1973