reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: culling


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sephora, the arrowhead. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

in ways i can explain and can’t explain, i am really dedicated to sephora. a few years back when our daughter was visiting we went to a greenhouse and nursery. she has a green thumb and it was cherished time to walk around with her and chat. she pointed to this plant – an arrowhead – and said she was growing one back at her home. i instantly decided to add it to our sunroom and named it after another adventure we had the days she was here. it is important to me that sephora thrives, just like charlie – a heartleaf philodendron she gifted me previously.

i watch sephora like a hawk…always trying to figure out if she needs more water, less water, more sun, less sun, more fresh air, less draft. we have a complex relationship; i think sephora knows the power she has over me and she wields it abundantly. i comply nevertheless. like i said, dedicated to its survival.

even as sephora’s individual leaves turn yellow from time to time (causing me much angst) i find this plant to be so beautiful – the light from the window causing the leaves to glow and radiantly light the space.

a girlfriend and i were talking about the cleaning-out process in our homes. she has readily cleared out much of what her two daughters had accumulated – but not taken with – in their growing-up years. they both live nearby now – in the next town over – all grown-up – and she sees them and their families regularly every week. my friend no longer has much stuff of their youth; with their proximity, she found it easier to dispose of most of what they no longer wanted, even in recent years giving away all the baby clothes and paraphernalia she had saved for possible reuse. she was surprised to hear i still have so much of all this. she laughed at my difficulty – surely a form of paralysis – in getting rid of everything.

i thought about this a bit, trying to figure out why i am so thready – besides the fact that i was born thready, have always been thready and likely will always be thready.

i realized that, though some of this is simply my heart-on-my-sleeve personality, it is also a holding-on of sorts. a peril of motherhood.

it would be dreamy – absolutely dreamy – to have my adult children living nearby, merely minutes away. it would be amazing to see them often, though always respectful of their busy lives. we are fortunate and joyous that our son is just one big city away, a couple-hour backroads drive or an hour plus on the train. to be able to jaunt over and see our daughter at any old time would make my heart burst. she has lived far away – with many states in-between us – for over a decade now, so visits require planning and are much more complicated.

i remember when my parents would come visit from florida – or we would go there – it would be an intense time of visiting in the days they were here – or us there – before it was time for them – or us – to leave and a big expanse of time would gap our shared in-real-life moments. i believe it is harder that way – the concentrated-period-of-time visiting instead of bits and pieces of life scattered like seed throughout the calendar.

in moments of looking through my momma’s things after she died, i could see the remnants and relics of me that she had saved. for in her lack of ability to see me as often as she would have wished, she held on with artifacts of our time together. the dots lined up. i completely got it and it became one explanation for the difference in the ability of my friend and me to let-go of stuff.

my holding-on – of the stuff left behind, the trinkets of their growing-up, the mementos of any grown-up visit we have had, wherever they have lived – it is the holding-on of love.

as claire middleton (the sentimental person’s guide to decluttering) points out, “we think that keeping all of those things will let us keep a little of each child who left us.”

my heart skips a beat.

ahhh. to be a thrower-outer, a clean-sweeper.

i’m working on it. i just had my first two sales on the resale site poshmark, which gives me incentive again. the baby and toddler clothes are bundled up and waiting patiently to go to the mission that gives them away to people in the city who need them. the cassettes are in a box, to be sent with payment for recycling. there are things on marketplace and ebay and craig’s list and the goodwill stack is ever-growing.

but nothing, though, stops my my-name-is-kerri-and-i-am-thready momheart from the wistful.

and, as i gaze at sephora’s stunning golden leaf – sunlight shining through it – i hold my beautiful golden daughter close, blow her a kiss, and miss her.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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a ruckus. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

the tracks tell the story. they came in and mowed down underbrush and trees, grasses and cattails. all in the name of habitat restoration. apparently, there are buckthorn and cottonwood and boxelder and various other invasive species that are suffocating the growth of young native tree seedlings. it looked absolutely devastated. as did the back half of the woods earlier this year after they attended to that section. but there was space for the sun to get through, for air and a bit of new growth. it was necessary.

now, admittedly, the back half doesn’t look as raw as it did right after that earlier eradication. but – it does look different. just as – i suppose – this section of the woods will look…eventually. it’s the meanwhile that is a bit tough to take. it’s stunning to see such emptiness where there was lush. it’s bracing to recognize how long it might take for this area to grow back – to fulfill the potential the ecologists plan for.

but devastation is like that.

in devastation-light we have the basement/attic project. this will all look decidedly worse before it looks better. the categories – keep, donate, sell – are staged all over the basement and have spilled into other rooms in the house. eventually, this will get better. it will look different. right now, though, it is a ruckus of stuff.

all this review of the past, though…it’s good for my heart. tiny salvageable moments derived from these seeming willy-nilly piles…i am wrapped in the after-devastation feels. for this is chosen devastation – choosing to touch all that is in the house and decide about its fate. and maybe devastation isn’t a good word for that kind of parsing out. just because it looks like devastation doesn’t mean it is devastation.

but there will be more culling before there is something that looks and feels good: the cleared out, organized space that honors the before-stuff and makes way for the next. the same way it is for emotional clearing-out. it will all get much messier before it gets air.

the tracks from the backhoes and heavy equipment punctuate the trail. we may wait awhile – maybe a few rains – before we take that loop again. in the meanwhile, we’ll go along the river where the trail is longer and quiet and the trees and underbrush are untouched – at least for now.

we’ll continue our quest in the basement and the attic and every other nook and cranny. we’ll make messes and piles and categorize each thing we unearth.

and the emotional stuff, well, it will surface and it will recede – both. it will be like a tide – just like the basement, it is a choice to pull things out of their previous compartmentalization. just like the basement, it has the potential to be really messy. and, just like the basement, it will be tedious and time-consuming and it is possible for a bit of anxiety to creep into the spaces previously left wide open by keeping it all in boxes and on shelves. suddenly, it’s all free-floating and there are fragments of emotions and tangible pieces of the past right there in front of us.

so we climb aboard our front loaders and excavators and bulldozers. and we start plowing down all the invasives.

and we just may feel restored after it all. we will have relived many memories, touched – really touched - the evidence of time passing. 

and we just may be rejuvenated. the new saplings will be free to grow. 

and we will look forward to lush, breathing easier and feeling the sun on our faces.

*****

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

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it’s that way. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

“do you know where you’re going to

do you like the things that life is showing you

where are you going to

do you know?”

(theme from mahogany – do you know where you’re going to? – gerry goffin / michael masser)

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. 

we are awake. and we’re making space.

for whatever.

“ever forward,” d’s mom says.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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ruth. less. ness. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

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.

more so, i am trying to figure out which of the items in the house “spark joy” and which are me trying to hold too tightly onto those “items that trigger memories but which i can dispose of without losing the memories”. yiiiiiiiikes.

this is a process. 

it requires prep and thoughtful introspection, gearing up and gearing down, a camera and stoic ruthlessness.

i am approaching ruth – but i still have to get to less and ness, so there’s a little time left. 

but it’s happening.

yup.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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used to it. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

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.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

EARTH INTERRUPTED mixed media XI 50.25″ X 41″

hand-me-down from my sweet momma

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not our forte. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

the sink is clogging. the fridge is leaking. the hall needs to be painted. the dishwasher stalled years ago. the sitting room floor needs refinishing. the doorknob fell off the bedroom door. there are deck screws to tighten and weeds to weed from the patio blocks. the window sash rope is broken. the mailbox needs repainting. the front rail needs sandblasting. the hydrangea needs to be tied for support. the garage needs to be cleaned, the basement storage culled. the vinyl siding needs to be washed, the gutters emptied, the chimney redone.

all in due time. like everyone else’s houses.

slowly but surely we get it all done. we are not brilliant masterminds of DIY home repair. my reticence to start a project has less to do with laziness or procrastination and more to do with grokking this lack of savvy. i utter, “i don’t think we should do that,” to his “and then i’ll just….” and we stammer through a few ridiculous heated words about manhood and ability and blahdeeblah till we start laughing because – really – we rarely have any idea what we are doing in these repairs – even with youtube at our beck and call.

i try to channel my daddyo; he was the king of repair. at least he seemed that way to me – always invoking in me confidence and trust that things were not going to get worse. my big brother was like that too.

but – the two of us? well, not so much. it’s all guesswork. sometimes it goes well and sometimes….? well, suffice it to say the sink is leaking now too.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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