Valuables

We are supposed to make a list of our valuables, all items going on the moving truck worth over $100 dollars a pound.

I didn’t do this the first half-dozen moves of my adult life. I always felt we had nothing to declare except our children. As I walk around the house with my note pad I realize there is plenty worth cataloguing--art, antiques, the rug I bought in Istanbul, some of the furniture. I am going to dust off and wear my engagement ring and take my other keepsakes with me. The Professor has some heirloom watches from his grandfather we need to decide to claim or carry. Other than that, we are all set.

I mentioned on our way to New York that if the whole moving truck went up in flames, I’d be fine with it. I still feel that way. I like to imagine what I’d do with the check and free time. I hate to admit this, but I’d love to stick it in the bank and enjoy the freedom of not replacing the stuff. When the Professor reads this, he’ll wag his raised-in-an-apartment finger at me and proclaim he told me so. He loves that most of what we've spent time and money on you can't take with you.

If we had it his way, there wouldn’t be a stick of furniture or any walls that we owned. We’d travel and teach for the rest of our lives. I had to push for my bourgeois desires and brow beat him into buying a house. Now I am fantasizing about having no nest. Funny how we become like our partners. I read that couples start to look alike after being together for years. I don’t think I resemble a six-foot-five Jewish man, but I am glad I am starting to think like one.