January 4th, 2014

It is Saturday and I have come back to the family house to check
in with myself, all my smaller and younger selves that have lived
here over time, because the self I am currently has become dislocated
and confused. My mother is researching the value of a china set from
the 30's which is spread across the dining room table. It is white with
hand-painted gold and it bears the flag of my great-grandfather's yacht.
Eventually, she moves upstairs to clean off her desk. I follow her.
My mother says: every time I clean out paperwork my heart
goes bump bump bump bump. Everything is emotional - it's
either my mother, or my father, or my ex-husband - who is dead
now too, I say, yes she says, but, when I read these papers, I am back there
when he was alive and when this was our life.  Do you want
me to burn down the house so we don't have to deal with it? I say.
Not until we find out the value of your great grandfather's china, she smiles.