Inger's an upper today. Apologies.

Uncle Ivar's estate in Norway is on the auction block. Limited audience: his remaining brothers and sisters. Limited estate: his small house--smaller than a one-car garage--with holes in the roof and plastic on the windows; a 1970 Ford Mustang that has mice living in the seats and the doors; an old reel-to-reel tape recorder; and a mountain of musical instruments.

Ivar loved to make music. Accordians, mandolins, acoustic guitars, violins--he had about 40 of them, as it turned out. One of them went with him to the nursing home; the rest stayed in his leaky hutte on a hill, covered with a plastic tarp. And now they have been photographed on the grass and sent with a bid sheet around the world to his siblings and their children, and there is jostling and chatter as the bids are assembled.

I am so saddened by the whole thing. Maybe it's just that this is Ivar, and his life was so sad and disturbing, at least to me. But the man had nothing but these instruments; they were important to him; he covered them to protect them--not his furniture, not his photographs. Now they'll be snapped up by people who hadn't seen Ivar in decades, and who don't play instruments, and are betting that perhaps some of them are old enough to be worth a few bucks, or will look nice hanging on a wall.

I sat here last night and looked around and wondered what treasures I have that my kids will want when I die. That lamp, maybe. That rug. A few paintings. My crystal glasses. Nice things that I bought before I had children, back when I had disposable income. The stuff gets to me sometimes; there's a nomad inside me, alive and well--one who wants no house key and no sofa, and no boxes of memories. But, too, I'm comforted to think that the children will drink from my glasses when I'm gone, and feel connected to me through these few things I have.

I'm not bidding on any of Ivar's stuff. I fear the instruments will carry his scent--I can still remember it--and I'm just superstitious enough about the dead not to want that here. But I feel sad for him. There's nobody to cherish his treasures, or his life.

We are so lucky.