Letting go of my dream life/part 4

I am opening the red duffel bag unprepared for the scent washing over me. I was ready to take on the content of the bag, but the scent…

Trouble 2 and Audrey returned from their US trip a couple of weeks ago. At the clearing out my Seattle storage we sorted my things in four piles: leave in Seattle with my Tempur Pedic mattress, throw away, give to the boys’ Seattle sisters Zoe and Becca, and bring back home. 

I didn’t know how much bring back home to expect since I didn’t know the outcome of Zoe and Becca’s digging in to my give away pile. But it turned out they had picked most of the favorite things I had in mind for them, and it makes me so happy knowing Zoe is wearing my super cute black and white dotted dress and Becca my sand colored softer than cloud suede hand made Italian shoes, we are exactly the same size the two of us!

The evening the red duffel bag landed in my great room I went to bed suddenly feeling oddly stirred up. I couldn’t tell why. And not really in what sense. But there was something making me uncomfortable. I was lying min my bed feeling a little bit scared.

Walking by the bag the morning after I had the same feeling. It turned out a bag had arrived from Seattle with Seattle feelings.

I asked Jannie who works here to put it in my guest room. I had turned acute some day before and couldn’t deal with anything more than that for the time being. I was expecting the content of the bag making me emotional but I wasn’t prepared for anything more than that.

Scents and smell is a very powerful thing. Reaching us totally unfiltered so that we will run out of a smokey room without thinking, doing what it takes to keep us alive.

Today I opened up the bag. There wasn’t that much in there, which was a relief. A plastic ziplock bag with some bathroom necessities, oh that lavender shower gel purchased in this cute little store in Winslow, was it summer -05? Or possibly December -06? A white bed sheet. An off white tank top with a little bit of needle work. A gauze scarf, do I have to mention it’s white? A light white linen dress, perfect for above 90° (32°C) hot Seattle summer days. And then there was the beautiful white/beige Eileen Fisher knitted cardigan my friend Randi handed me over summer -10. I think this is more you than me, she said, and gave it to me. Thank you!

The scent from all this is Seattle. A scent bringing up pleasure, loneliness, longing and fear. And the over all feeling is the cramp in my stomach that comes with the question and exclamation “How do I do this? I can’t manage this!

This might come as a surprise to you considering my deep love for Seattle and my constant desire to be there. There is an explanation to it though. The cramp in my stomach is the lifting of my over packed luggage and the dragging of the heavy and ungainly Tempur Medic mattress across the ocean and between my temporary Seattle homes. It is being stranded in hotel rooms, basements and pent houses with my back out, not knowing how to get myself back to Sweden. It is having to ask friends and strangers for help in vulnerable situations. It is a sense of homelessness among my boxes, suitcases and video-audio-photo gear in every new occasional Seattle home of mine. It is my late evening mantra “you know it will feel better tomorrow” helping me through that first night most every stay.

So why did I do it? Because I wanted to. Because I wanted to so badly. And because I needed to prove myself more sturdy than I felt. And was. It was a challenge I was willing to take on. And those times not ending in a trauma or being too bad made me grow.

Now, this scent from the red duffel bag, what is that? What’s the Seattle smell? Normally the Seattle bag smell is damp and quite unpleasant from the moist that sits in the walls of old Seattle houses, transferring to your clothes.

But this isn’t that. This is something different. This is a (emotions unattached) pleasant smell. And the first thing that comes up is that it’s the scent of Randi. Which can’t be possible. I’ve had her cardigan for seven years and it’s even lived in Sweden for a while, there is no way it can still wear Randi’s scent. I am burying my face in the linen dress, the bed sheet and the cardigan. Is it the smell of the mattress that’s so familiar and strong? It can be. But these things have not been stored with the mattress, they have been in a separate box. Is it the smell of my latest and last Seattle home, the lower Queen Anne pent house with the killer view? Or is it a detergent? Did I wash the sheet, and my clothes now smell from it? And in that case, does Randi use the same detergent?

Now, this is a mystery. Maybe I will come up with the answer. But for now I have the choice of bury myself in this scent and feel every emotion hidden in there, pain and pleasure. And hopefully eventually it will help me let go one more step. Or, stay out of it until the scent wears off and fades away.