reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: clearing out


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all that mylar. [k.s. friday]

they are a mystery. vhs tapes with no labels. now, how on earth can you send them to the vhs recycle place if you don’t know what they are? there could be priceless memories on that magnetic tape, mylar possibilities gone missing.

fortunately for us we still have a vcr machine. i’m not quite sure if it will just simply connect to our tv, but there is a gigantic plastic bag in the basement workroom with all kinds of cords and cables and such, so maybe we will find something in there that will help. or maybe we will have to get some kind of converter. nevertheless, we have hours of viewing fun in front of us for some rainy evenings and we can find out what’s on those unlabeled tapes.

there are plenty labeled as well, which makes it infinitely harder to dispose of them. movies of my girl and my boy as tiny babies, ballet recitals and soccer games, birthday parties and christmas mornings, movies my sweet poppo recorded off the tv, shots of family times, recordings of cantatas i directed, footage of some of my concerts and of me performing on qvc. they all demand a viewing and i’ll set them aside in a bin and someday, well, many somedays, serve them up with popcorn and m&ms.

the pre-recorded vhs tapes are no less sentimental. the million times we watched under the sea singalong songs, the ridiculously infinite numbers of times barney made an appearance at our house, disney movies, the nutcracker. it goes on and on. not just in the basement, these movies are in the chimney cabinets, waiting.

and then there’s the 8mm tapes, which were converted to dvds and carefully labeled a few years back. goodness! memories à gogo.

i guess someday someone will find our fuzzy purple cd case with the zipper and our daughter’s marker drawings all over it, the one we even take on trips. they’ll unzip it to find all our favorite dvds…the ones we default to, over and over and over, for we are those people who love to watch movies we love to watch again and again.

and they’ll wonder how to watch those dvds; they’ll seek out a dvd player, ponder what cords or cables they need, if they need some sort of converter. they’ll pick a movie out of the fuzzy purple case or maybe one home-recorded and labeled. they’ll load it up and push play.

then they’ll settle in with some popcorn and m&ms.

*****

let me take you back

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LET ME TAKE YOU BACK from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood


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pink squishies. [merely-a-thought monday]

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.

for now, they don’t take up too much space.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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knitted and crocheted. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

“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)

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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more barn-red and grey after the black and white. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

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.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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desi is messy. too. [k.s. friday]

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.

desi nods her wild-hair-branch head.

*****

taking stock

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

TAKING STOCK from RIGHT NOW ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood


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my poppo in my dream. [merely-a-thought monday]

my subconscious was in overdrive. i had heard some news late in the evening and, clearly, it played into all i was thinking about in my overnight sleep. both my sweet momma and my poppo were in my dream, as were people who were stars of the news i had heard, and, unlike many other dreams that vanish with the dawn or fade to irretrievable mishmash, this one stayed with me.

in it, i wanted to tell my dad what had happened, wanted to share the news with him, wanted to give him the back-story of it all, which, of course, he already knew (especially from his vantage point a dimension away). he was setting up microphones for me – something he truly has never done in real life – and he looked over at me. he furrowed his brow. “i’m working for tomorrow,” he said. “work for tomorrow,” he encouraged.

i can still see him, bending over a mic stand, adjusting a boom mic and looking forward. his words have stuck with me. “for tomorrow.”

i knew enough in the dream that he wasn’t pooh-pooh-ing the value of today – neither was he sloughing off the importance of work in this day. today. rather, it was somehow clear to me that he was discarding the what-had-been, the back-story i was going to repeat – again – and he was leaning on the hopeful of tomorrow, the promise of work done today helping tomorrow, and it is likely he would agree with juliette gordon low, the founder of girl scouts of america, one of my mom’s passions, when she said, ““the work of today is the history of tomorrow and we are its makers.”

i woke up the next day still in the dream. my poppo was somehow still present with me. and the news i had heard, though not unexpected and certainly a little bit satisfying in a puzzle-piece-found sort of way, became less worthy of my time. some stuff is just more important left behind. there are plenty of fascinating puzzle pieces ahead.

as i take bags and boxes to donation sites soon, i know that clearing space – out of the basement and out of closets that had been full of unworn clothing – will be invigorating. i have been going through, going through, revisiting memories, feeling the visceral that touching clothes you wore and objects you used brings you. but, hanging on to too much old stuff, too much excess, too much old yuck too tightly squeezes life out of the air. letting it go allows a flow of fresh in. it will open up room for other things to enter or it will just simply open up room. because, as my dad says, it’s working for tomorrow. tomorrow…a time of renewal and hope and change.

there will hopefully be many “days after today”. as i create history on this day, it is my hope that it is always with an eye to tomorrow. i know not every day will earn a spot in the books. there may be many we do not care to revisit in the ‘réview mirror’; there is room for growing. i guess that’s where learning comes in. (“learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences…the result of experience.”) but in looking to tomorrow, instead of yesterday, there is hope. even the tiniest flower wholeheartedly and courageously peeking out of the nearly-still-frozen ground knows that.

that poppo of mine. he’s one smart cookie.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

happy seven year anniversary to the release of my sweet momma’s book SHAYNE! ❤️