Packing up is hard to do

Ihave lived at 39 addresses during my soon-to-be 83 years; 16 towns in 10 states. On one hand, the number is unsettling; over half of those moves — the most disruptive ones — occurred before I was 18. (Six elementary schools; two high schools. Commitment issues, anyone?) On the other hand, it makes me smile. Jack Benny claimed to be 39 until the day he died at 80.

Ironically, I will stop counting at

39 as well. My last Amazon purchase will be delivered — late no doubt — to the modest Hudson Valley farmhouse where I have spent each spring and fall weekend with my wife since 2014. (She still lives and works in Manhattan.) I am blessed with good health, sustained by a strong, 45-year yoga practice. But I do not want to push my luck living alone in the country, dependent upon the transient goodwill of neighbors whose horses rightfully enjoy a higher priority in their lives than I do.

So, a New Yorker I must become. (As best as a Texan can.) A New Yorker I will die. Eventually. The good news is everyone says the Hudson Valley is the new Hamptons.

Over the years I have stubbornly resisted the idea that nomads cannot be collectors as well. Now I am paying the emotional price for that folly. As I prepare to dramatically downsize, I move slowly and respectfully through my Santa Fe home, acknowledging a lifetime’s accumulation, postponing the inevitable decisions I have to make: which treasures I am willing to let go. The exercise hardly rises to the level of a Sophie’s choice, but it is painful nonetheless.

These are not items that evoke a single moment in time. Not like a rare waft of Shalimar that sweeps me back to a 1956 high school prom in Wichita Falls, Texas, slow dancing with Dona Marie Metcalf. No, this is art I have an ongoing relationship with; that I see and interact with every day of the summer and winter. They represent the sublime. Yet, even at the other end of the spectrum — the ridiculous — I encounter resistance. I opened a rarely used drawer in my