There's an enormous storm outside. Forks of lightning going sideways. What makes the lightning go sideways anyways?

My friend Alison just left for England, somehow even though we were not rushing when she left, she managed to leave behind a bathing suit, a bathing scarf, a book she was reading, and her bike, cunningly locked to mine outside.

My mother, who liked reading into things, would say all this last minute forgetfulness indicates a reluctance to leave, or something like that. I know Alison's not really reluctant, but I also know yesterday when we were cabbing our way through the busy, relaxed and beautiful city that she had already begun to miss her Montreal life, mais juste un peu. Being the person staying behind, I got to miss Montreal by association, and realize again how nice it is to live here.

Our 'stuff' has power, that we share things and give things and want other people to have our stuff for reasons that aren't always 100% utilitarian indicates that we like to use our material belonging to throw our immaterial weight around. I was here, says a stack of books that belong to your ex-lover. I was here too, is the knife from another ex - the knife he won't take back because he still comes to help make dinner and in his own words; "You have to have at least one good knife".

I am listening to music on gift speakers sitting in front of a gift couch, the dresser in my living room was chosen by my ultra-modernist grandfather, given to me by my much more traditional grandmother when she moved into a home.

I like it when my stuff has a story, when I can point to an object and see the relationship that brought it into my life.

I have profited from my dear friend Alison's departure, by receiving her beautiful walnut night table. I know that sounds cold I don't meant it that way. Her friend Sebastian found the table for her when he took her small filing cabinet, Alison exacted a price, if he wanted the cabinet he had to find her a nice solid wood night table to replace it. He did, and now she's given it to me. However sad a departure makes us, we take comfort in the stuff we get from our friends who are leaving. To make a macabre comparison, this is what makes an estate sale kind of gloomy, it's a bunch of stuff without any relationships. Thrown back onto the market for antique dealers and bargain hunters to fight over. It's less macabre that my Bubi made me go and put a piece of tape on the dresser I wanted from her. She wanted to know that her stuff, and by extension her life, would continue with me, and I was happy to oblige.

My new nightstand is a cool piece of furniture, made of walnut, with two little oval newels for front legs. Instead of the standard one drawer it has two, and when I was filling the drawers I remembered going through my mom's night table once upon a time.

I was about 9 years old, it was a week-end day, probably the afternoon, and I was exploring in the attic where their bedroom was, and also some crawl spaces where I had made a fort. I think I was just snooping without any reason for going through her nightstand. I was that kind of kid, I always wanted to find mysteries or old things that presented puzzles. It's a lucky thing I chose my mother's table, on my father's side I may well have found some condoms, speaking of puzzles.

I remember her drawer was full to the brim with dusty junk, matchbooks, old pictures, a checkbook, broken jewelery, headache medication, a small book of prayers with gold embossed pages, some greeting cards, old notes.

The sense I have is of digging through the drawer with a feeling of such permanence. I had no memory of a life without my mother's bedside table, without my parent's bedroom, and the smell of their slept-in sheets in the late afternoon sunshine. Even though all the pictures in the drawer spoke of times when my mother had lived somewhere else, had other friends, no me, and no my brother, I still felt like it was impossible she could have lived anywhere else but in our house, with my father, and have this drawer exactly as it was, with me riffling through it. The site of all these images of a younger her, of these matchbooks from places I had never been, notes from people who were not related to us! None of it seemed real, not as real as that bedroom. Not as real as the mother I knew was downstairs reading by the wading pool where my little brother was playing.

Now that I am an adult I see how she must have seen her life experience. Her bedroom's configuration that day and her 9-year old daughter as only one part of a pretty eventful life. As her child I couldn't see it, couldn't see her as a person involved in a series of events, I could only see her as rooted as a tree and changeless as a bedroom on a quiet afternoon.

One day, I hope I have a daughter who looks through the contents of that little walnut night table with curiosity, viewing my entire life as nothing more then the preface to her being, I genuinely hope that.