Are We There Yet?

Are we there yet? We had moved into our new home. On sunny days it was flooded with light that filled me with unexpected pleasure. There were concerts in the park across from our condo. We had begun to get to know people in our building often with truly serendipitous connections to other friends of ours. We were both pleased with our new home. But we weren't done yet! We still had an old house to empty and sell. So how do you get rid of things? I had taken clothes to Goodwill and periodically thinned out papers, but I realized that I was skimming the surface in my elimination of things. Now we had to get serious.

I began with the seemingly easier things, sending 100 novels off to a senior living facility. But my books were my history, my first glimmer of that obstacle in discarding. I found I could more easily emotionally part with books if I listed them out first. That system quickly broke down as the numbers overwhelmed me. I discovered boxes of books from my parents' home that I wanted to keep and had already culled from their collection almost ten years earlier. As I’ve read electronically for years, I prioritized what I would keep in physical form, giving priority to art, history and reference books along with the few novels that felt especially important to me. And of course two shelves of cookbooks. 

We both faced dilemmas with things from our parents that we had forgotten about. My father had a large stamp collection that I had sold upon his death, but several boxes surfaced after my mother passed away and landed in our home. Fortunately, they were easily disposed of at a stamp and coin dealer. Unbeknownst to me, my husband had stored fifteen boxes from his late mother's home for the past twenty years. From old china to family history documents, he now had to sort between what to dispose of and what to keep.

You know those bags you get at conferences? We had a ridiculous number of them and were delighted to learn that we could dispose of them at an office supply store as well as old electronics. A scrap metal dealer took anything that was primarily metal allowing us to eliminate those items that had languished in our garage. I reached out to consignment shops and to antique dealers while my husband mastered Facebook Marketplace. Gradually the piles lessened with odds and ends remaining. We then painted and re-carpeted, preparing the home for its future owners. 

Despite our best efforts to eliminate belongings, there were items that followed us to our new home.The part that I struggled with was what to do with my own personal history, the pivotal points in my life documented in journals and letters. There was correspondence from old friends and roommates as we shared the travails of our twenties and beyond.  I also had rough drafts that I’d kept of my end of the correspondence, documenting my life in real time. I had forgotten how much we communicated in letters prior to email. 

And what does one do with old love letters that represent periods of my life frozen in amber? As a test, I actually shredded letters from one early beau whose letters did not inspire retention. The shredder died. I wondered if the universe was sending me a message and if so, what exactly was it trying to tell me. 

I assembled a box of documents of the important turning points in my life, choices that played a role in my personal journey, a roadmap of sorts. I am at this odd place in time where I can see the patterns in my life and what led to the me of today. When we are simply living our life, we don’t always recognize the full significance of those choices until hindsight deepens understanding, allowing us to find our path through our history, connecting the dots. When I do genealogy presentations, I often retrace my steps through a case to understand my intuitive process. I then use that material as a teaching tool. Similarly, my artwork emerges out of an intuitive process, but I then go back and make sense of where it took me to find the story within it. In many ways, my interest in my own personal history is a similar exploration. 

Why does this documentation of a life matter? Perhaps I would revisit it to write some essays. Would I be wishing I had that original source material? But if not for me, would anyone else care?  I was already imagining my nieces or step-daughters going through it someday. Would they simply pitch it, understandably overwhelmed with the disposal process. Or perhaps they would do as I did with my father’s correspondence, pause to read it and arrive at a deeper understanding of the person they thought they knew. Would they be at all surprised? 

I recall an old friend who in his 40s never kept anything personal in writing, no journals, no correspondence, and certainly no love letters. I was quite incredulous when he told me of this practice, knowing I could never implement such a rule in my own life. Now, I understand the wisdom in his approach, but for me history matters –– family history, cultural history and my history. This is where I am stuck as the boxes accumulate in my office. Of all of the stages of moving, this is what stumps me. I want to keep it all. 

Often things I’ve held on to for years can be repurposed in artwork. Of all the seemingly odd things I have held onto is a box of leaves, waxed leaves, leaves from 1975 with the newspaper article on how to preserve them. It was a project I had undertaken with my former-husband. I spread them out on a piece of paper and noted the interesting patterns they formed. I often paint about memory and what better material than 50-year-old leaves. A seemingly ephemeral thing which should have turned to mulch years ago. 

We are nearing the end of the parts of this process that require our active engagement. It has been a multi-step process from considering what we wanted, to finding what was there, to making a decision, to making it our own, to letting go of belongings. I liked the making it our own stage the best. And the least –– letting things go. The process of emptying out a house of almost thirty years and unearthing my history was daunting, even more so deciding what to do with it. 

Look how empty!

There is a learning curve to moving and we don't do it often enough to master it. And there are a multitude of decisions to make along the way. It is a stressful project, more so later in life when belongings have meaning within them, laden with the loss of loved ones and the story of one's own life. I am glad we made the jump now. If we waited ten years, it would not have happened. 

And I am grateful to have taken it on with my husband who has a variety of skills that made it more manageable. And now, I look forward to resuming the activities that I enjoy, so much of which has been on hold. Writing about the experience has reminded me of how much I enjoy and have missed writing. I hope to be doing it more in the future.

And a little extra . . .

As we went through this process, many friends confessed that they were thinking of.a move too, but hadn't progressed much further than beginning to thin out belongings. We discovered  businesses that support those efforts and tapped a number of them. So we thought we'd provide some of the places we discovered as we went through that process for those of you who are contemplating the same. Some are local for the Minnesota crowd, but check the nationwide stores in your area to see if they provide the same there.

Home Depot Garden Department recycles Plastic pots (they don’t have to be clean)

H&M (Ridgedale) recycles worn out clothing and textiles including bed linens and they give you a coupon for 15% off. For more information

Levis Store (Mall of America) Has a trade in program for old Levis jeans. They’ll  pay for some that are salvageable and recycle those that aren’t. There’s a limit of 5 items per month. For more information

Express Metals in Hopkins pays for scrape metal including things with motors, wires, screws and nails pretty much anything with a metal component. https://www.expressmetals.net/

Turnstyle is a good option for consignment. Stop by to check out one of their shops to get a feel for what they might carry. It took awhile to get the hang of it, but it did turn things we forgot we had into cash.

Staples takes those old conference bags along with electronics and gives you a 10% gift certificate for the store. 

If you have something that might fall into the antique category check out local antique dealers. Often there are several in one building and they are not all there at the same time. I set up a site online with photos so they could check it out and let me know if something interested them. 

And of course all the usual places, Goodwill, Facebook Marketplace, and putting things at the end of the driveway with a free sign.

Creating a Home

One of the first things we did to make the new space ours, was to put out a rug that I have had through two prior homes. Consistent with my lengthy decision making cycle, I had once hauled home a total of forty oriental rugs, a few at a time, only to return them for a few more. This tribal rug was not what I was originally looking for, but it demanded my attention because it conversed so well with my artwork. I have found that it anchors our home and adapts admirably to very different spaces. With that as our anchor, we were ready to surround it with artwork.

When we took the artwork down from our old home, the house felt less like ours. It helped us to separate from and emotionally let go of the house. By the same token, we needed to reverse the process by getting our artwork up on our new walls to claim them as our own.  My husband and I have a few pieces of our own artwork up, but our home includes artwork from friends, and many artists who have become friends, often after we purchased their work. The artwork has special meaning because of that and a story often accompanies it.

With most of our belongings in our new home, we turned our attention to hanging our artwork. Now my husband is incredibly meticulous in how he does this. He finds the center line within the room and hangs everything else relative to it. It is a big production done with precision. Before he was hanging my artwork, I used to eyeball it and put a nail in the wall roughly in the vicinity of what I wanted. If it clearly didn’t work, I tried again. I didn’t know about such things as center lines. Now duly informed, I was prodding him to apply his expertise. I wouldn’t dare impose my technique on his pristine newly painted walls. I can feel him wincing just at the thought.

I was doubtful that we would be able to hang as much as we had in our prior home with its two levels and a stairway. And what was I going to be able to do in a round living room? Surprisingly, much more than I imagined. The floor to ceiling windows were separated by niches of wall, some large enough for fairly large artwork. We also had sculptural pieces which broke up the space, moving your eye to different levels around the room.  I methodically measured the width of each wall and matched it to a spreadsheet of our artwork dimensions to consider what might fit where.

 

I have often observed how artwork has conversations between pieces. Moving disrupted some of the chatter, but new conversations developed. And sometimes I was able to retain a “conversational grouping.” With my wall unit gone, I had to figure out where to place artwork. We had some shelves and a fireplace mantel as well as those artwork niches between the windows.

 

When we select artwork, we are drawn to certain colors, forms and imagery, so it shouldn’t surprise me that those colors and forms echo throughout, amplifying each other. The bronze color that united three pieces appealed to me. The painting is Ophelia, by my husband. My eye moves from that face to a ceramic face that we purchased in my hometown in Illinois and then to the horse that I carried home in my luggage from Paris. The artwork echoes my journey through life, connecting my husband, my hometown and our travels. 

 Sometimes the artwork lends itself to whimsical gatherings. I was entertained by my encaustic by Jeanne Gockley of a woman and a cat, looking curiously at the Randy Cooper sculpture next to her. Below her the curve of a piece we got in Venice echoed the curve of her arm. I recalled walking into a gallery in San Francisco filled with a gathering of Cooper’s metal mesh sculptures, shadows cast upon the wall. When I returned home, I contacted them and splurged on the piece, a birthday present to myself. 

Some new conversations developed between the glass and porcelain pieces I had collected over time and the woodcut over the fireplace. The large woodcut was created by a friend I had met at an arts workshop in San Miguel, Mexico many years ago. The piece had meaning for me because it captured an area that had felt quite mystical as I watched a series of Mexican women, each with a hand steadying a bundle atop her head, disappear into what seemed to be a mysterious vanishing point. My friend had created the image of place just for me. 

The colors in the artwork are echoed in the collection on the mantel and the piece on the shelf to the left echoes the flowing arms of the cactus. Our friendship lasted for close to thirty years until her passing, but I still feel her presence through her artwork. The glass and ceramic pieces below it soon grew into a collection as I unearthed pieces that had been tucked away in our former home.

 

Below that mantel, ceramic pieces framed the fireplace. My husband and I had met years ago in a life drawing coop so nude figures are often elements in our art collection. 

I soon realized that the tops of bookcases and cabinets provided additional real estate for artwork and art objects. I could prod them into conversation with each other. Art pieces join together to form a larger whole.

The possibilities continued to grow as I learned to think, well, creatively. A small carving of a monk from Spain blends into the background of a collage forming an entirely new image. 

This part of moving, I enjoyed and it continues to give me pleasure. I am especially appreciating the new conversations that are occurring and enlivening our new home.   

Stay tuned for Are We There Yet?

Claiming Our Space

We went through the purchase of our new home half sleepwalking. Were we really doing this? I couldn’t conceive of how our belongings would fit into this smaller space. In truth, the actual living space was about the size of the main level of our old home, but it was as if the downstairs walkout of our old home had disappeared. POOF!  Of course, that was where we stored all the things we didn’t know what to do with. 

We had purchased our new condo from the original owners, and much was as it had been when it was built seventeen years earlier. The place had open space and a great view, but not everything was to our taste. I knew that if we just moved in without changing things we didn’t care for, we would never change them. And it would take much longer to feel like ours. And so, we began to seek bids to redo the bathrooms. It had never truly occurred to me to rip out tile floors and tubs. My concept of remodeling hadn’t extended beyond a coat of paint. We were astonished at the bids that returned and continued to seek out new ones hoping there was some simpler and less costly solution we were overlooking. Ultimately, we did find the right person to complete the work at a more reasonable cost with us playing a more active role in the purchasing. 

We dutifully went off to the tile store to select our materials.That part of the journey was fun but tinged with uncertainty. We visited showrooms and big box stores for shower equipment, closet doors and tile. There were multiple intersecting decisions to make. Were we making the right choices? What looked great in the store’s lighting, didn’t always work as well in ours, so we had a few attempts before we arrived at the best combination of elements. Then we went through a similar process in replacing carpeting and selecting paint.  Ten samples of paint patches coated our walls as we considered what colors would work best in a room with so much light that paint colors changed dramatically throughout the day. We each could veto a choice and we had to both agree to move forward. Fortunately what mattered to one, mattered less to the other, so we defaulted to whomever felt more strongly. 

The incremental nature of the decisions made it difficult to picture the final result, but we began to trust our judgment as each of our changes proved pleasing. It was beginning to feel like ours. My worries about space had resulted in us taking out a tub and replacing it with a large closet which proved to be an excellent decision. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that with ten-foot ceilings there was lots of storage space if I had a step stool nearby. Thus I found a home for the china and crystal that I couldn't give away. They harkened back to a time in my thirties when I took cooking classes and threw dinner parties. I carefully put each piece away, contemplating if I might ever resume such activities.

Each new purchase involved much searching and debate. We purchased a new bedroom set and couch and ferried our old couches to our artist studios, where we had to find room for them. The convenient thing about a studio building is that what doesn’t fit in our studios may be an inviting addition to another artist's studio, not to mention the free table where items that are left may end up in studios or repurposed in artwork. 

 Our condo had a round living room which meant that the lengthy low bookcase that once held glass and ceramic art objects had nowhere to go. Instead, it took up residence in my studio along with all our art books. My smaller paintings sat atop it. It looked as if it had been designed for that space. 

And I moved furniture out of the studio as well. When my mother passed away, I got the two mid-century modern chairs that had graced her living room since I was a child. I had housed them in my studio and talked of someday having them refinished and reupholstered. That day had come. They moved out of the studio to make room for other furniture and into our new condo. It is the first home my parents are not around to see, but I feel their presence through those chairs and other artifacts that summon their presence. I know my late mother, a nature lover, who always called us to the window to see a bird or a sunset, would have loved facing the park.

 

Most of our family now resides out of state, but one grandson is in a neighboring state and was the beneficiary of furniture and artwork. In an early visit his girlfriend admired a wood carving that I had gotten on a trip to Mexico. “Would you like it,” I asked, as I handed it to her. “It’s yours!” It was the first of many belongings that we passed on to them, pleased to have some treasures begin a new life with family. My niece, our first overnight guest in our new space, also left with artwork. Are you sensing a theme? We have a lot of artwork.

I soon learned that two people bring two different approaches to an impending move, each gravitating to action, but in different ways. Panicked by the mere thought of moving, I quickly began to sort through clothing, papers and books, thinning out belongings. My husband was not at that stage yet, annoyed as he tripped over my growing pile of bags for Goodwill. He envisioned a simple and orderly move. His theory was that we would move the items that we wanted to the new place and simply get rid of what was left. I argued, that while that was nice in theory, it ignored the fact that there is a sorting process that must occur and that entails getting rid of things gradually. It is an incremental process, not simply a toggle switch between keep or don’t keep. And neither of us had yet contemplated the difficulty in getting rid of things without adding to landfills. To give my husband his due, he was in his comfort zone, busy painting the condo walls while I sorted. 

While the bathrooms were remodeled, we were limited in what we could move in. Carpeting then had to be laid, and I had to wait until the painting was done. After those projects were completed, I began a daily trek each day to our new home, bringing over boxes to gradually establish our lives in this new space.

One morning shortly after the remodeling was completed, we woke up in our old home and my husband turned to me and said, “I think we should move in today.” I looked around me taking mental note of my surroundings as I wondered if this was the last time I would sleep in that bed. And it was. We moved in that day. What surprised me was how natural it felt. My husband remarked that it felt as if we were on vacation in a high-end hotel. It did a bit, but it also felt comfortable, like it was ours. We had begun to claim it as our own.

Stay tuned for Creating a Home

A Slow Jump Into Change

It has been a quiet year for blog writing. Also reading, painting and genealogy research. Many of the activities that bring me pleasure were abandoned as efforts were refocused on a more pressing priority. We have been in the middle of an interminable move.  Who knew it could consume just under a year? And so much physical and emotional energy. 

We decided to do it in a seemingly low-stress way. Having heard tales of people moving in very short time spans, we opted for the more costly, but lower stress strategy of buying first, updating, moving, and then the overwhelming task of fully emptying and disposing of our old home of close to 30 years. In hindsight, we traded one stress for another. We’re now at the “when will it be over” stage as we prepare our old home for sale. It is an experience that others in our condo building have all shared. They nod knowingly as we relate our woes.

 

I don’t remember my move to my former home being complicated. The decision had a different impetus. I had split up with a long-distance beau and decided I no longer wanted to put life decisions on hold, waiting for someone else’s concurrence. The home I was then living in was once shared with a former spouse. It was time to choose a home for me.

 

I didn’t have much furniture and apparently far fewer belongings. My handyman had a truck. I packed a few boxes, and they, together with my old furniture, magically appeared in my new and larger home. I bought new furniture and my now husband, then a new relationship, gradually moved a few pieces of furniture in along with himself.  After a time, his daughter who shared his townhome, had said, “Dad, don’t you think it’s time you left home.” And so, he did, selling his townhome to her and moving in officially.

 

Our time in our old home included years of collecting art as well as treasures from our travels. Years of having a home with lots of storage space. Years in which parents and sometimes siblings passed away.  We acquired the detritus of our parents’ lives as well as our own. And years in which we went through the disposal of parents’ homes and belongings, so had the beginnings of an appreciation that someday loved ones will be going through that process with our own belongings.

 

So, what led to this decision? It wasn’t an overnight decision. Neither my husband nor I are impulsive with big decisions, except of course when we got married after only knowing each other for fourteen years. We had no idea how long a new home might take. In fact, we looked for two and a half years, conscious that we were getting older and might prefer something that would simplify our lives. There were times that we each claimed we could have decided sooner if it was just up to us, but of course this time concurrence was necessary. It is a strange thing to imagine your future self and consider what future self might prefer. My very fit husband was biking 34 miles round-trip to our studio and reminding me that he wasn’t getting any younger. I was noticing stairs and gardening becoming more uncomfortable physically. We knew it wasn’t going to get easier and wanted to be in an environment where we could continue our active lives more easily.

What environment was that? We began by looking downtown and along the river, close to our studios and cutting my husband’s bike ride substantially. With that we were introduced to the idea of loft living, which originally sounded quite romantic, the stuff of movies. We looked at many of them and realized that light typically entered at one end, unless one found a coveted corner unit. Everything was focused on how to spread that light through what often was a long space. And trees. There usually weren’t any, although occasionally one might find one sheltering a balcony. Or you might see some in the distance.  For a long time, I felt like we were playing dress up, trying on different places and wondering who we’d be within them. Pulling the trigger 

was an entirely different decision.

 

When you look long enough, you begin to identify what really matters to you. And you begin to accept the hard reality that you may not find everything you want in one place. And that may be OK. I have often likened it to a relationship. You give up some things in exchange for the things that really matter. And then you throw in a bit of exhaustion to grease the skids. While I have a long research phase in decision making, ultimately I tiptoe up to the edge, swallow hard and jump. True to form, that is exactly what I did, only now it was a “we.”  And I have to say, I don’t know that I would have moved solo. Having my husband along for the ride helped immensely.

 I couldn’t imagine the path to get there, but figured other people do it and we could be other people too. I’m not so sure that’s true, but it is just as well I had that assumption, or I might have backed away. And that would have been a mistake. We are pleased with our decision, just not enjoying the tail-end of the process to get there. And I’ve learned that moving, at least disposing of one’s history, is not my skill set. As someone immersed in genealogy, it runs counter to my nature. 

At the end of the day, I needed light and trees in a walking neighborhood. We looked at several places in an area that offered that, not as close to our studios, but closer than our prior home. We both loved the area but held out until a corner unit with ceiling to floor windows facing the park became available. And then we both jumped. I picture us floating through space holding hands as we free fall into change.  

 

Stay tuned for Claiming Our Space

Not Every Sam Was a Schloime or a Shmuel

For those involved in Jewish genealogy, the fluidity of given names often presents a brick wall. You can't find the record if you don't know the name. 

Jewish traditions have unique features, presenting both challenges and valuable clues for family history. Typically, a Jewish child receives a secular name and a Hebrew name. For Ashkenazic Jews, that name is usually after a deceased grandparent or great-grandparent. When several cousins bear the same name, you can assume that a grandparent of similar name probably died shortly before the earliest birthdate.  

Our ancestors came from another country where they had a secular name, a Hebrew name, and often a nickname. Then they Americanized their name and selected a new name that may or may not resemble their former name. Having made that leap into a new life, they often continued to modify their name, trying on new identities.  

To work your way back you will want to learn their Hebrew and Yiddish names. To follow their trail in the United States, you will need to trace name changes. So how do we do that?

 

Finding Hebrew and Yiddish Names

A unique feature in Jewish tradition, the tombstone, provides the Hebrew name. If you are fortunate, there will be Hebrew on your family tombstones that will reveal both the decedent's Hebrew name and their father’s.  You may be able to work from the Hebrew name to the secular Yiddish name found on the immigration manifest. Often the Yiddish name is shortened from the Hebrew. Yisrael becomes Srul, Ishaya becomes Shaja, Eliazar becomes Lazar. 

 

Certain names may be calques. A calque has the same meaning in a different language.  Often calques are associated with animals. Aryeh means lion in Hebrew and Leib means lion in Yiddish. While someone’s tombstone may read Aryeh, their secular name was likely Leib and, in the U.S., they often became Louis. Dov means bear in Hebrew, Ber in Yiddish. Sometimes the two names are combined, such as Dov Ber, but there are often unrelated double names. And don’t forget those nicknames. Dov often became Berek or Berel because of the Yiddish form of the word. 

 

After 1906, the naturalization record will show both the name they went by in the U.S. and if different, the given name and surname they held when they entered the country. You can now work back from that document to the immigration manifest. One thing you will quickly discover is that not every Sam was a Schloime or a Shmuel. They may have been another name with an “S” such as Shimon or Shaja. 

 

Trying on a New Identity

When our ancestors arrived, they discovered the popular names of the day and were quick to assume them if they resembled their Yiddish name. Batya often became Bessie, Chaim become Hyman, and Chana, Anna. But not always! And some names hardly changed at all. Binyamin became Benjamin 94% of the time. You may be surprised to know that in 97% of cases Ze’ev became William. Ze’ev is a calque meaning Wolf. Wolf to William makes more sense, but it would be puzzling if you didn’t know about calques.

 

There were no rules governing which name they took, and names often evolved. The best way to trace them is to review city directories and census records, tracing them in family groupings so you can continue to track them as names change. You may find small changes from Bertha to Bessie, Betsy, and Betty. Conversely there can be seemingly unrelated changes as I found with a Chaim who became Elmer and then Norman.

 

Never assume a name was static. Knowing a person’s name at a particular time will allow you to locate records from that period. If you have a gap with no records, consider the possibility that records are hiding in plain sight, just by a different name.