we’ve spent days now – so far – going through, organizing, cleaning out. it is – in every way – an adventure. the items of life – in retrospect. stuff that tells stories, emotions wrapped around a piece of jewelry, a note, an old flannel shirt.
it’s a slow go. this time – of looking back – is not to be rushed. some things require lingering a bit. i have sat with many a ‘thing’ in my hand, telling d a tale of its arrival in my life, its meaning, where it came from, where it took me, prompts of life lived. some of it is astonishing – things i’d forgotten. some of it is astonishing – things i still remember. some things elicit the “if i only knew then what i know now” response. some things move into the keep category, while others are making their way to join the do-not-keeps. some things i just stare at, wondering what on earth to do with them.
and in some parallel plane – as i pick up each piece o’ life – touching it, feeling it – and then lay it back down – it is as if somewhere i am also picking up each piece of life – touching it, feeling it, laying it back down. this sorting is powerful, not merely tidying up.
and it is gaining momentum.
as we look at the difference it makes, it invites us to keep going and going. deep into the bins and boxes. into the storage room and the attic, the kitchen cabinets, the back of the closet, the file drawers, the desks, the studio. it seems this is the time. this time the cleaning-out will take; the purge won’t simply be a great idea that dissipates into thin air. even with all the hard work – physically and emotionally – this time i can see it.
it’s that way → → →
and while we have no clue what might be out that way – the amorphous – waiting – we move in that direction. we are giving our home, our lives – all of it – the cleanse it all needs – to breathe and to invite in the new.
the spaceship hasn’t arrived and i am still – the tiniest little smidgiest iota of a bit – procrastinating. not entirely, but yes…enough. i’m wondering if there is such a thing as an estate sale while you are still alive and well and living in the house.
and it is time. to put it all away. the christmas trees are piling up in those grind-them-into-mulch places. the new year has arrived and with it the giant plastic bins come back upstairs. i’ll soon – with some reluctance – gently put away all the tiny trees, my mom and dad’s shiny brite ornaments, my children’s framed note to santa, the silver and snow-white of winter, all the gestures and mementos of the holiday season. the living room will look bland for the first few days, until i get used to it again.
it’s always a time to look around and imagine. imagine change of some sort – changing a look, rearranging, culling out, even minimizing. i run around – in my head – with ideas, things i’ve seen in catalogs or magazines, on hgtv or online – pondering, maybe doing a wee bit of rearranging here and there – thinking i’m too used to it to see it all as it is.
and then i stop and look. as if i just walked into our home for the first time. what do i see? what stands out? what gets lost? and, mostly, how does it feel?
we have both many hand-me-downs and many vintage pieces (read: old/re-purposed). they are in every room in our house. i wonder what our home would look like if we had started fresh and chose everything in it for specific purposes. how would it look with a narrow wood and pipe dinner table instead of my treasured sisu music productions’ office oversized teak table? how would it look minus the old desk and chifforobe in my studio? how would it be to change out the old cabinets in the kitchen – like most home-buyers these days? or to replace the cedar chest and old china closet in the dining room with cabinetry more suited for the space? to exchange the dresser i got from lois or the chest i got from miss peggy, the chimney cabinet from hayesville, nc or the ones i got at a wholesale show for my office space? the re-painted wicker set from the lanai in florida or the butterfly chair from one of the kid’s dormrooms? the gingham print reclining wingchair with fabric on the back that our angel babycat – in brattier moments – redesigned? and what about all those branches and rocks, driftwood and aspen and hagstones and miniature boulders, flat top red rock, tiny cairns?
it is a time to clean out – both figuratively and metaphorically. the beginning of the new year pulls at most of us that way. i’m already starting to rise to the culling part of that equation. though it’s never easy. give away, sell, find people who need the excess things we have.
the rest?
the replacing? the new purchases? the changing out? the shuffling around, the rearranging? not so much.
it’s home. it feels like home. and we’re used to it.
and the shiny brite spaceship gathered all the excess – from the basement, the attic, every nook and cranny – and took off at warped speed, giant contrail following it, chugging into outer space, lugging it all to the delighted beings on another planet.
in my dreams.
no…this is cleaning out that i can’t avoid. it is time.
and all the books on our planet on this topic – ie: the konmari method (ala marie kondo), claire middleton’s sentimental person’s guide to decluttering, etc etc etc – don’t reeeeally help. (however – here’s a pro tip – sitting and reading these books certainly does successfully delay actually doing it!)
the other day we sold rockband. it was a complete set and kept in pristine condition. we sat in a grocery store parking lot and waited for the guy who bought it off craig’s list to show up. because it was christmas eve i brought a giant roll of wide ribbon so that he could simply wrap the box in lots of ribbon to put under the family tree. the moment he drove away in his hatchback – stuffed with the huge box in which i had carefully wrapped all the elements and instruments of the game – i was hooked.
it’s time to clean out.
i guess the first place to start is the closet and the dresser. now, we only have one dresser – i have four drawers and d has one. our closets are small – remember, this is an old house – and it’s difficult to see everything because they are too tightly hung with clothing. looking at my clothes, i always ponder a few things: will this ever fit again? how can i give this away when i have emotional attachment to it? will i need this skirt/dress/pair of pants/blazer if i ever have a “traditional” job again? what about concert attire? and shoes…yikes. there’s a whole ‘nother issue. i haven’t bought many shoes at all in recent years – like the last ten or fifteen, but i still have shoes that i wore in 1995, so there are a few pairs in my closet, the closet in the sitting room and in a bin in the basement. the ones i wear over and over? very few. i suspect that is a theme…for most of us…for most of the things we place on our bodies and on our feet.
and so, it’s time.
it’s not like you haven’t read this here before. it is – yes – a recurring theme. i googled my own writings and was reminded this yen-to-shed-stuff has been going on for years. even in 2021 i wrote about the “lateral list” of things to do. let’s just say i’ve been gaining momentum. gearing up. stoking my ruthless.
eh. let’s just say i’ve been procrastinating. isn’t that what basements and attics are for? the indulging of procrastination. yup.
anyway, i have been bitten by the craig’slist, marketplace, ebay bug. maybe a few things can generate a grocery trip or two. otherwise, “free porch pick-up” and “donate here” sound good.
the up-north gang gathered before the holiday and sipped brandy slushies. we each talked about how we had saved bins of toddler clothes, toys, trinkets for our children, now, all grown-up. we have the corners of attics and storage rooms in basements with giant plasticware carefully storing these treasures we were certain our children would want. only they don’t. they don’t want any of it. here we are, children of great depression parents – certain we were doing the right thing, the frugal thing, and yes, yes, the sentimentally thready thing – and they, children of children of great depression parents – are far enough removed from all that heavy sense of handing-it-down/passing-it-on responsibility – that they all astoundingly tell us “no thanks”. without remorse. even flippantly. as opposed to our voices when our own parents passed bins and bins and boxes and such on to us…respectfully and gratefully accepting it all, even with no clear idea what to do with it, just trusting in the storage capacity of our basements and attics. so here we all are – with bins and bins and boxes and such – in the emotionally perilous journey of cleaning out. not for the meek at heart.
it’s time.
and so, is there anyone out there who would like vintage puffy santas or the sesame street vintage play gym or a smattering of noritake china with teapot or a collection of disney vcr tapes or an 8-track player complete with 8-track tapes? perhaps multiple tiny oshkosh overalls or polly flinders smocked toddler dresses? or some fenton hobnail milk glass pieces? or decorative plates for hanging?
yep. they are mine. sponge curlers from my growing-up.
and, i have to tell you, i am tempted to try them. i mean, remember banana curls? well, they are baaaack.
everything comes back, it seems…so my sweet poppo was right in saying that you need to have a giant barn “out back” where you can put every single thing until it comes back into style again. and again.
the cleaning-out-of-the-basement (and the closets and the attic and the cupboards and the garage) is just a tad bit overwhelming, not that you haven’t guessed that from all the other times i’ve mentioned it.
these sponge curlers are riding the can’t-decide-train. they alternatively go from donate to trash to keep. i’m leaning to keep. i mean, how much room do they actually take? and….wouldn’t it be fun to try them again one day? i think i have a curling iron or two tucked away somewhere, but we all know old-school is, well, old-school.
we came across the word “modtro”. ohmygosh, ya gotta love it! it is us, i told david. a cross between modern and retro. yup, yup. and no, we aren’t going to go all math-like and try to figure out the proportions of each…what percentage modern and what percentage retro…i’m sure that the girl and the boy could fill you in on that. but i do love having a descriptor. because, truth is, we sit kinda close to the tail end of the baby boomer category and we are not really gen-x-ers either. it’s tough without a proper descriptor. modtro. i like it.
so, as a modtro, surrounded by both – the modern and the retro and don’t forget the retro-ish-modern – my life-work is now – for this moment – discerning between treasure and what’s-a-nice-word-for junk. discerning between we-should-keep-this and someone-else-could-really-use-this-especially-if-they-didn’t-have-to-buy-it-let’s-give-it-away. discerning between someone-else-needs-this and someone-else-would-buy-this. discerning between i-can’t-part-with-it and i-can-take-a-picture-of-it-and-thank-it-and-let-it-go. discerning between the necessary and the not-necessary. discerning between the i-can’t-store-it-anymore and the deep-regret of getting-rid-of-it.
i come by all this honestly. my parents were not wasteful. they had a tight budget – i now see – and they re-purposed and re-used and did-without and passed on the genetics of this in full force to me. the i-might-need-its rear their ugly heads and i push back, conjuring up the strongest ruthless inclinations i can muster.
and i’m doin’ it. the stuff is clearing out. it’s a long process with many decades to review as i go. there are moments of utter joy – remembrances and visceral memories. there are moments of wistfulness. there are moments that make me laugh aloud.
i clearly remember my sister not-so-gently brushing my hair and winding it around these old sponge curlers. then i’d sleep on them all night, which is a gigantic sleep-sacrificing effort. and then, voila! curls! “it hurts to be beautiful,” she’d admonish me when i complained, bonking me on the head with the hairbrush.
so it’s hard to know in what pile to put these pink squishies.
“the quilts seem silent, a ‘silence like thunder.'” (sue bender – plain and simple)
they are not quilts. they are hand-crocheted, hand-knitted blankets, every one of them with a story. for hours on end, people who loved me sat and crocheted, put time aside and knitted. they chose patterns and stitches and yarn colors. they held the thought of a new baby in their hearts as they generously prepared their gifts. and with great anticipation, they wrapped these beautiful soft blankets in baby shower wrap, probably not truly anticipating that thirty-two years later i’d be holding them in my hands, all teary-like, struggling to decide what to do. do i keep them all? do i place them gently back into a plastic bin in the basement, carefully stored? or do i find a way – ala my sweet momma – for someone else who may need a soft blanket to have one of these?
cleaning out is like that. over and over and over again. the choices – like these blankets – are silent and thunderous. potent.
in the moments of holding these blankets close, i was holding my daughter, just born, wrapped in pastel-variegated-yarn. in the moments of holding these blankets close, i was tucking in my son, a soft white and blue blanket to keep him warm in a cold winter night of his birth. in the moments of holding these blankets close, i was decades removed from my life at the moment. i was holding tender memories, swirling in babyhood times, feeling the rocking chair seasons, wistful.
and i was unclear. unclear about what to do.
so i freshened each one. on the delicate cycle i washed each blanket, carefully checking for any marks or stains. they came out of the dryer perfect, even softer, if that is possible.
and i decided. i decided that they didn’t belong in a bin or in a closet, waiting.
we took them to the hospice facility in our town. a most delightful young woman greeted us there and thanked us. on the phone she had told me that these would be perfect lap blankets or shawls and that they always needed such donations. she asked me to fill out a form so that they could write me a thank-you.
funny, on the contrary, i wanted to thank them. for in the moment i placed the large bag on the chair and i was no longer holding the blankets i knew that i was passing on their nurture.
and i know that every time i might stop and think about knitted and crocheted blankets i will have pieces of times with my newborn babies wrap around me.
“each time i looked at the quilts, my busyness stopped. the fragments of my life became still.” (sue bender)
we are beginning to see more of this: the basement floor. more clear space.
as you know, it is a slow process, tedious, actually. and it is not something he can do with me. this is mine to do. for most of what is down there – in the recesses and the corners, tucked into old built-in cupboards and in, yes, bins and boxes and even bags, precedes him. he is happy to help, but it is somewhat a moot point, as the decisions are mine and he respects that.
it’s not just a little bit of pressure, not just a little bit of work. black and white decisions that aren’t really black and white.
you are weary of reading about this, i suspect. skip today, i would suggest. the basement clean-out is not a short story – it’s an epic tale, really – and, if you find any form of redundancy abhorrent, you will be tallymarking-in-your-mind the number of times i am talking about this. this will be a tallymark mess, cross-hash upon cross-hash, the slashes accumulate.
a few days ago i turned the inner cardboard tube of a roll of wrapping paper upside down. more birdseed than i am comfortable with fell out. i suppose you are wondering how much birdseed-saved-in-the-wrapping-paper-roll i find acceptable. well…really…none…as we are not the ones saving birdseed in that manner and it brings to mind the question of a city of dwellers below us about whom we know nothing. they live in the barn-red-grey zone in silence and anonymity, leaving tiny clues behind in their stash. i wonder what they think of the rest of the stash down there, most of which they are not likely to be able to get to – the bins of barbies and matchbox cars, the mementos and art projects my children created in elementary school, every story they ever wrote or note they penned me or the overalls that were ever-so-adorable on my son, the pink dress so sweet on my daughter. maybe they are intrigued with the antiques, the tools, the not-oft-used kitchen appliances. they are hoping to be invited to the next cornhole bags game, the next bocci ball tournament, the next badminton skirmish, the next time the pingpong table is set up and ready-to-go. they are gazing at the collection of pingpong balls, golf balls, tennis balls, baseballs, soccer balls, thinking the upstairs-dwellers have a pension for round things. surely they are impressed with the stacks of boxes of shrink-wrapped cds, though they are more likely mp3 critters and, being 2022-born, roll their beady little eyes at the mere mention of cds and cassettes. i’m guessing our tiny visitors actually have no opinions about all this and clearly no interest whatsoever in the 8-track player or the record albums. they are not thready nor are they sentimental. they were simply seeking places to stash their seed-findings.
yes, i will need a new broom…one of those angle ones that gets into the corners. there is much to be swept.
in time, there will be more floor. barn-red and grey. i have to get past the black-and-white of it all first.
because we see desi every day, it is hard to notice its growth. she is likely changed at every sunrise streaming through the window behind her, yet we can’t see it. we’re too close, sitting at the table with her every day; the changes are imperceptible.
desi is a tiny pine tree, an evergreen whose genus and species are unknown. maybe a white pine, we wonder; she’s a messy little thing. her tiny branches are not orderly; she has a bit of wild-troll or kramer-esque (“seinfeld”) hair-branches going on. but her trunk has gone from a tiny needle stalk to something a bit more solid, a bit more grounded.
we talk to desi, just as we talk to all our plants. they each have a name (plants are people too). and, though i haven’t checked on each plant’s tolerance for this, i touch each one. we talk about the sun and the spring ever-coming and their stoic thriving through the winter. i tell them i can see their growth, for i cannot imagine any one or thing not liking positive reinforcement.
yesterday, in mid-basement-clean, i called up to david in his office. i asked him if he could take just a couple minutes to come downstairs and see my progress. i told him i could use the positive reinforcement. plus, if he didn’t look at the progress along the way, he would likely not realize what it took to get there.
it will take tons more time. i have so much to go through…more than thirty years of accumulation. it’s been an ongoing project. but the space i cleared in the workroom yesterday was significant and, if you looked, you could see the change.
some clearing out will not look like much. there will be boxes or bins that i will go through and things will get messier before they get cleaner. it will be hard to discern what i’ve accomplished. it may look a little wild down there. but it’s changing, nevertheless.
not unlike the stuff going on inside. we can’t really see that growth either. we sit at the table with ourselves every single day. one day someone tells us we seem lighter, a good trend. positive – and negative – changes, both worthy of our attention, both glimpses into direction we choose to travel, the way we want to be in the world, how we want to ground, how we want to grow.
clearing out – on the inside – does not look like much. things get messier before they get cleaner and it is hard to discern what we’ve accomplished. it may look a little wild in there. but it’s changing, nevertheless.
on hangers festooning the basement laundry room, ballerina tutus of leotard and tulle challenge my drive to go through, sort, clean out, organize. tiny costumes and pink slippers that held fifth position and twirled pirouettes taunt me. i stand and gaze. and stare, lost in thought. they are the stuff of dearest memories, of watching my daughter dance, of sitting on the wood floor in the back hallway of the ballet studio, of heartbreakingly sweet recitals and pink roses and light smudges of blushy rouge on softest four-year-old smiling cheeks. how, then, do i sort these, i wonder. how, then, do i clean them out, i wonder.
though i am mostly not a fancy-schmancy, the bubbles and the bits of lace and tiny crystals will get me along with the art and the twinkling lights. there is that piece of lace of my wedding gown from 39 years ago held in an embroidery hoop. there is that first bubble nightlight that my son loved when he was little-little. there is that delicate crystal bracelet my sweet momma wore. there are those handkerchiefs my grandmother crocheted, colorful scalloped edges on tiny cloths of linen. and artwork circa 1990s: glittery tissue-paper poofed trees of construction paper, crayon and pencil drawings of me, of family, of flowers, of cars and trucks. stories on pa-pads-paper cut with kindergarten scissors and stapled, stories in notebooks, stories on looseleaf. the cursive script of my mom’s handwritten letters. sugary white ornaments i can still see on our long island christmas trees. the signed fine crystal stemware of my grandparents. the tiniest-tiny graceful bud vase with a handwritten scrap-of-paper note my mom wrote indicating it had been her grandmother’s. the 1943 floral-etched bell my parents got as a wedding gift. what does one do, i wonder.
on rare days i didn’t feel well – you may skip this part if you wish, dear gentlemen – when i had horribly yucky cramps, my sweet momma would pour the tiniest amount of manischewitz into the tiniest green beautifully etched vaseline glass. we’d sit and talk on the couch by the front window and the tiny bubbles of elderberry, a blanket and momma’s care would soothe me. there are six of these vintage glasses and a tray to match. i have no doubt what one does.
one keeps the bubbles and the lace and the crystal and the tulle and art-in-all-its-forms. isn’t that what basements and attics, treasure chests and the old corner cabinet in the dining room are for?
i dare not hang them inside (or even on the actual front of the house, for that matter). but they will find their place. my mom and dad’s old christmas lights were in the bottom christmas bin in the storage room in the front of the basement. all bins had to be moved for the water utility folks to replace our water line so it seemed a decided task to go through the bins and, maybe – if i could find any ruthlessness – pare it all down a bit.
this is not a task for the nostalgic.
my digging and sorting and organizing and paring-notparing-paring-notparing down was like listening to all the old christmas record albums at once. it was frank sinatra and the carpenters and jim nabors and the firestone orchestra and chorus and herb alpert and the tijuana brass and dean martin and john denver and bing crosby and julie andrews and burl ives and doris day. it was old glass ornaments sprinkled liberally with glitter and felt cut into homemade trees with elmer’s-glue-laden-decorations. it was golden angels and hardened flour-water wreaths and crocheted bells and plastic poinsettia corsages and thick red yarn for stringing. it was cloves and pomegranate seeds and macaroni and tinsel and sugar-coating and silver sleighbells and styrofoam snowmen. it was crayon-printed “kirsten” and “craig” signatures, old red stockings-to-hang and fuzzy santa hats. tree skirts and tablecloths. rogers’ christmas house treasures and andrea’s christmas candle bubble nightlights. gift tags with long stories in a simple “from”.
as i was standing over those bins on thursday and friday, half my body buried deep into the bottom of the piles, i came upon a snowman ornament. “to kerie, from patrick” read the gift tag i had saved in the box from circa 1982, a gift from a piano student to me, his teacher. i took a picture and sent it to patrick, now my friend across the country on instagram. instantly, i had one of those heart rushes you get when you stumble across something tiny yet just simply precious. reaching out and letting him know seemed obvious. (not to mention a distraction when i needed one.)
i pulled my sweet parent’s vintage lights out and, because of that way that wires entangle even in the best of circumstances, i took my time detangling. i plugged each strand in, tightening the bulbs and removing the ones that had burned out. on the dining room table, i put together one long strand with working bulbs and made a decision. this year – as opposed to most all other years – i would wrap our front porch rail with memories. i would carefully place each old bulb so everyone passing could revisit a time long ago, decades in fact, a simpler time. i would succumb to the multi-colored-lights this year. on purpose. and after the new year, i will gently place them back in one of the bins, next to the painted-glass ornaments and the trees made of construction paper and paste.
and though next year we’ll likely go back to white twinkling happy lights out front, i will always remember the multi-colored lights and the enormity of love-filled stories and i will – just-as-always – know they will be a treasured part of my heart.
there were three overstuffed bins when i started. with a few things to donate and much in bags to dispose of, there are neater, tidier, more organized bins now. but there are still three.
reverse threading 