The kid was here so we did a swap of items for her to take with her move to Portugal and for me to have here until my days wind further down. Down and out. Of course most of the things I am passing on are actually from my mother and father or from the children’s childhoods. I didn’t think to take a photo of the books we had from the 1892 copyright edition of Character Sketches from Romance Fiction and Drama, so I’ll copy from the internet. They look much the same as ours do, all being quite old and from the same publisher, Hess.

Some samples from the books are on a slide, above. These are published on the internet and are available from various sellers, some of them quite expensive, likely dependent on the condition. (One always hopes for virtuous reasons.) In any case, mine were obtained free of charge from a friend’s uncle Herman when he died many years ago.

Throughout their childhoods the girl and the boy enjoyed looking through the volumes with me, oohing and aahing at the photos and the stories. Although antiquated and attic do come to mind. Memories of youth and enjoyment are measured through the pages along with pressed flowers left behind by the two old men who once knew the pages fresh. We found an old playbill from the early 1900s written in German, a directive on how to properly open a book, and the crumbling leaves from an iris to name a few of the treasures therein. We had as much enjoyment from the written language of the stories and descriptions as from the photos. It was so easy to enter into that past, that time, both theirs and ours. The books now left with her, to travel to another country with memories safely enclosed.

Amongst the treasures returned to me to stay behind is the baby dish from the World War II era that had been mine. There was no reason for the kid to keep it, hence its return. While this too is loaded with memories—they are mine—of no consequence to others. Perhaps there is a monetary

value but that is not the point of the articles being exchanged. Hence the dilemma spoken of earlier in a blog writing about my mother’s dishes. It’s just a thing. It’s just a thing that sparks memories and love. But only with certain people. And that is its real value.

So where do these things go, where do they go from those of us who want to travel lightly, to empty our suitcases before we take our last breaths? Or best of all, spend as many years as possible unencumbered, free from baggage to travel lightly with Spirit rather than weighted by possessions that possess? I don’t think our possessions define us, but maybe they do.

In the end it was a lovely visit but did I end up with more possessions than I gave away? Did she?