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Published on 06/09/1999 All articles from this issue

A few reminders

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By Kerri Havnen Gordon

The Living Experiment

The other night I dreamed an approaching fire threatened our home. The air outside was smoky orange, and we had five minutes to evacuate. My husband was not home, so it was up to me quickly to select a few items to take with us.

It does not surprise me that I dreamed of a fire. Like many people, I have occasionally wondered what I would find worthy of saving in such a dire situation. The dream afforded me a dress rehearsal for an event which I dearly hope never happens.

In my dream I gathered my sons, their shoes, and our cat. I asked the boys to grab Oatmeal and Otis, the stuffed bears from their babyhood.

The three photo albums I chose were of our wedding, our family, and a tattered album chronicling my parents' lives.

Next I ran to my closet and fetched down a plastic bag filled with love letters, dated 1978 - 1983, from my husband during our courtship. That

in hand, I retrieved similar letters my parents had written each other in 1955 and '56, before their marriage.

On an impulse, I grabbed my jewelry box, thinking only about my mom's bracelet, my Aunt Evie's pins, the earrings my husband thoughtfully picked out for me once on a business trip to Hong Kong, and a macaroni necklace my son made in preschool.

When it was almost time to evacuate, I made a quick sweep of the house, collecting a wooden model boat my husband's grandfather had built and some silver-framed pictures of our babies and ancestors. From the hutch I reached for my grandma's plate, which I call thus even though I bought it at an antique store. The lovely pattern is the same as the plates which held generous portions of lamb, rice pilaf, green beans and mint jelly Christmas and Easter dinners while I was growing up. The plate's power to vividly evoke my grandmother's memory, 25 years after her death, deemed it an essential item.

By now the kids were in the car and urging me to hurry. Having time for one more quick dash into the house, I surprised myself by what I chose as the last essential item: the computer. It holds all of our financial information, which I figured we would need, as well as the book I am writing as a gift to my sons, and six years of highly entertaining e-mails my sister and I have sent each other.

Closing the back of the van, I noticed how empty it was, and how little I really needed to take with me.

I awakened then. Through the house, palely lit from dawn, I walked from room to room, making paranoid sniffs for smoke and noticing all the extraneous clutter. A row of books holds titles both read and unread, which I doubt I will ever pick up again and should not keep. The kitchen has a deep corner cupboard filled with rarely-used kitchen items, soon to be discarded. All the closets need a thorough culling. Behind dressers I have stored framed pieces of art which I no longer even like but haven't been able to part with.

Until now. Dawn soon gave way to a stunning cloudless, and thankfully smokeless blue sky, and with it came a stunningly clear, cloudless frame of mind reminding me that we keep more than we need and that, when it gets right down to it, we need very little.

We require a few reminders of who we are and where we came from, and we need each other. Aside from that, most things are expendable and replaceable.

Kerri Havnen Gordon writes The Living Experiment monthly for the Town Crier.