Tansu Unburdened
- Jan 28, 2023
- 2 min read
by L.A. Shortliffe
A gold foil box. Nestled within the inner folds of black velvet, gilded dragonflies circle red lacquered chopsticks. They shine with lack of use. These are only for good.
Unfurling a rice-paper scroll reveals sumi-e sparrows in flight amongst stalks of bamboo. Grind the sumi until it is black as pitch.
There’s an old spam container, edges rusting, label fading — serving as home to a dance of carefully folded paper cranes. Sakura blossoms and koi adorn their washi paper wings. Fold 1000 for a long life!
Lifting off the persimmon-painted lid of the black bento box reveals a horde of rubber bands — one from each newspaper that arrived at the front door. You might need one later.
Faded felt pennants, emblazoned with university names, cushion a Wedgwood college plate. No one can take your education away.
These were your treasures. Packed away in tansu drawers, iron handles clanging their readiness to be carried away should a blaze threaten, you kept memories in material form. Objects imbued with potential, your preserving nature unable to discard. Each item passing through fingers became precious as you tried to fill the void of what you were forced to leave behind. The hollows that internment dug inside you appear in the 60s-era science magazines stacked in piles beneath the back window, jars of pickled ume you amassed in the pantry, and the collection of broken toilets that crowd the basement. Did their accumulation rebuild your stripped sense of security? Were they salve to the shame and betrayal you felt when your face and name cast you from your home? Shikata ga nai.
I unpack and rebox your belongings, memories and meanings shuffling through me. The burden of grief and duty intertwine. Can your possessions fill the hole in me where you used to be? Or is the comfort found in objects ripples of a family’s old wound? The brittle rubber bands are discarded in a largely vacant trash bag, while my box of memories and scars fills up.
L.A. Shortliffe is a clinical psychologist who squeezes in time to write whenever possible. She loves exploring the complexity of human experience and life’s big questions in both her writing and clinical work. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in City.River.Tree, After Dinner Conversations, and Potato Soup Journal. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Sacramento, CA. For more information, please visit www.lashortliffe.com.
