For the past five years, I have worked abroad. All of my worldly possessions fit into two suitcases.
I rent a furnished apartment and turn it into my home by placing my few personal items around the small space.
There are the Buddhist-style flags that feature painted flowers on cardboard, threaded together on a piece of twine, given me by my daughter Kate when she was 13. She is now 28, and these flags have followed me to every home I've had. They pack flat and come to life instantly, making me feel I am now at home.
Such are the powers of the things we own.
* * *
In my shower, I keep a small yellow rubber duck that makes me smile every time I see it.
When my grandmother died, she left some money for all her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and asked that after she was buried in Locust Ridge cemetery in Brattleboro we all spend the weekend together at her favorite spot on Long Sands in York Beach, Maine.
Thirty of us made the trip. The first night we did as she had asked of us - we shared dinner and told stories of our youth and all the grand adventures we'd shared with her and Grandpa at the ocean. We laughed a lot as each generation told potent and touching memories of these two important, loving people.
But what of that duck, you ask? It and its companion arrived floating on the top of a bowl of liquor that tasted, quite innocently, of fruit punch. In a sweet moment my grandmother would have applauded, my son Sam (now 31) and I shared that drink through two long party straws.
Later, as we walked arm and arm, both a little loopy under the spell of the night and the contents of that big bowl, he took the two yellow ducks out of his pocket, sat them on his palm and asked me to choose one.
“I'll never forget this evening,” he said as he gently offered one to me.
Duck and I have lived in China and Egypt. When I come home for a visit each year, I smile when I see Sam's duck in his shower.
* * *
But what of future memories? What do I take away from the places I live and visit?
I've made a habit these last five years of purchasing a piece of jewelry in each new country I've visited as a keepsake.
In anticipation of my trip home this summer, I'd collected a small bag of jewelry in need of repair knowing that when I would visit Brattleboro, I could stop in Beadniks on Main Street for assistance, advice, and the right supplies. That store is unlike any other place in the world.
Last week, I stopped in and asked the clerk, Sarah Jayne, to help me find what I needed to make the repairs. As I laid out each piece, she thoughtfully surveyed each one.
She then stopped and said, “I tell you what. This is an odd collection and the repairs are simple. I'll help you fix them if you'll tell me about each piece while I work on them.”
I happily agreed.
* * *
She started with the intricately crafted silver necklace from Cambodia, handmade by the seller's grandfather; it was missing its clasp. I had purchased it as at a tiny shop near the Killing Fields. I'd needed to walk off the emotion of the experience to boost my spirits that day.
We came to the pair of fan-shaped silver earrings made by the seller in Cozumel, Mexico that needed tightening. How hot it had been the day I'd bought them from a young woman whose chair was her only store. She was standing beside the chair, items carefully displayed upon it, on a dock next to the ocean.
I stopped to look at them only because their maker looked so thin, haggard, and hungry, her eyes pleading for sales. I remember her face almost every time I wear them.
Another necklace came from a Chinese friend. Meng Meng and I traveled to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in central China, a UNESCO site that houses the quartz, sandstone, and pillar-like mountains that were the inspiration for the movie Avatar.
The necklace is made from twine made from a plant in the area; its colorful reds and yellows come from local wild flowers. Wire is wrapped with the twine in a pattern. At the end is a piece of silver upon which are placed turquoise stones, laid in another specific pattern.
The piece signifies good luck and good health, a common theme in the superstitious culture of the Chinese. Meng Meng had seen the necklace at a little stand at the end of a six mile walk we'd taken in this World Heritage site.
“Just a minute,” she'd said as I sat on a a stone bench, thinking she wished to purchase a souvenir. When she'd walked back to me, she went round the bench back, reached to my front and carefully placed the necklace around my neck.
“Happy birthday!” she exclaimed, “I know it isn't until next week, but I hope you will remember this day whenever you wear it.”
Chinese culture demands that its citizens rarely speak of or show emotion. This gesture was an outpouring of both. I will always wish that I could have hugged Meng Meng, but that would have been culturally insensitive.
Instead, I made sure that I wore the necklace each time I saw her. I know she took note of my efforts, even though her culture precluded her ability to comment.
* * *
Gently, Sarah Jayne continued to repair my treasures as I spoke. The blue topaz earrings from Myanmar (formerly Burma), the 1-inch replica of a Bedouin's house, a pin from Egypt - all needed only a tiny bit of glue, The wooden earrings from Botswana in southern Africa were the quickest fix as I had lacked only the needle-nosed pliers to tighten their brass rings.
The last piece - a necklace given me by the young woman who had created it - took the longest by far to repair.
I met Farmit when I was climbing the mountain that leads to the famous Monastery building in Petra in southern Jordan last spring. She was sitting in a small cave, trying to stay cool as the sun was beating down early that morning.
I had made it halfway up the 1,000 rock-cut steps placed there by Roman soldiers around 312 B.C. I noticed her sitting on a hand-woven mat on the floor of the cave selling cotton head scarves.
I smiled at her, she at me, and a friendship was born.
She'd invited me to join her for a cup of tea. Two hours later, between her limited English and my limited Arabic, we had become fast friends. I decided to head to the mountaintop before the day grew hotter, and she suggested that I stop on my way down and visit her again.
Three hours later, I arrived at her cave. She put the tiny cast iron tea pot back over her small gas stove. While I was gone, she had created for me a necklace of silver beads and turquoise with a medallion of two fish at the bottom.
She presented it to me and helped me put it on. She pointed to one fish, and said, “You.”
She pointed to the second and said, “Me.”
Then she smiled and said, “friends.”
We took a selfie.
The necklace, strung on a piece of used fishline, had broken the very night she had given it to me when I took it off at my hotel. I had collected the tiny bits and pieces and put them into a small plastic bag.
Sarah Jayne opened and restrung on a sturdy wire. While she worked, I took my phone out and showed her the picture Farmit and I had taken together.
An hour and $7.48 later, my worldly souvenirs had been repaired, and I'd made a new friend on this side of the world.
“Come back next summer,” Sarah Jayne said with a smile as I took leave of her store.
* * *
I hope that when I am very old and nearing death, I will be able to hand each of these pieces of travel history to my own children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
I also hope to hand to Sam and Kate an envelope of cash with the same instructions my own grandmother gave to her children.
I imagine them all sitting around some restaurant table, each wearing a memory of my own travels, all reliving all the good times we shared with one another around the world and in York Beach, Maine.