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golden moment. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

they were luminescent as the noon sun caught them in its grasp. magical. glowing. each individual seed seemed poised for takeoff, ready to catch the breeze, twirl and fly.

it is much like how i am feeling as i painstakingly go through the house … the bedrooms, the attic, the basement …

the memories all gather on the plume, ready to catch the next breeze and twirl in front of me, bringing me back to moments a long while ago – many decades or even just a few years.

they are golden, these memories, and i give them time as i touch the relics, leftovers saved. i’m trying to go slow, even as i wish to accomplish much quickly. my thready heart relishes what i can remember, even when it sorts to sadness, even when it sorts to tears. in the timeline of life, i am bobbing around like the crazy super balls we had as kids – the ones with bouncing trajectories you couldn’t predict. the wham-o super ball would zig and zag and i am zigging and zagging through time just like that.

sometimes i have to leave a box or a bin or a pile for a bit, step away and breathe through it. i have found that touching these objects – the tactile – makes it all real and up-close, almost like it’s now. and, because i am the sensitive, emotional type, i have to step back … back into the room, straighten up, look out the window, pet the dog, sip some water. it can be overwhelming, this going back stuff.

as the bins empty and the sorting keeps going – this is merely phase one – i can feel the space opening. i can feel the air of whatever is next. i will still save many things, though i know that perhaps some will be relinquished in phase two or three. it gives me a bit more time with the artifacts of my life.

and the treasured antiquities nod as i put them in the save pile. they know it is their golden moment – their chance to twirl for me, their flight with me. they are as luminescent as the plumes, ever so countless, glowing in the noon sun.

*****

HOLDING ON, LETTING GO © 2010 kerri sherwood

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saved from away. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

almost every time we mosey around an antique shoppe – likely every time – i find myself musing about how no one should buy anything new. at all. ever. we should all just go peruse antique shoppes, flea markets, thrift stores, for – in those places just brimming over with possibility – it is probable that we would find all we need. and more.

we really do love a good antique boutique filled with vintage treasures just waiting to be re-homed.

because i agree with annie leonard (greenpeace), “there is no such thing as ‘away’. when we throw anything away it must go somewhere,” we have not yet disposed of our (decades and decades) old range. we have, instead, cherished it and putzed with it when it was struggling. but it is not in a landfill somewhere and, for that and for its long, long lifeline, i am grateful.

we were on the quest for a single ladder – to add to our deck with a purple sweet potato vine. we wanted a bit of interest over in the corner and found a stack of single ladders outside our favorite antique shoppe. but in the steps between where we parked big red and the ladder stack, there was this little garden table. d instantly stopped and drew it to my attention.

because our backyard is – indeed – our sanctuary, a small peeling paint white garden table could be the perfect addition – over there, on the deck, next to the railing that defines the potting stand garden.

$20.

but there is a sale. 20-40% off.

we buy our chosen ladder (who knew there were so many different widths?) and bring it out to the truck, ready to leave.

but that garden table.

it called us as we walked by. the second time.

so we went back to look at it, to wonder at its story, at where it had been, at its character as evidenced by its patina.

we snapped a photo and went inside – just to ask.

because we have been there many, many times, the gal at the checkout knows us. she asked me what I wanted to pay (though we weren’t yet sure we wanted to purchase it.) i replied $10 and her quick answer was, “sold!” i couldn’t help but wonder what a small garden table with as much joie de vivre would cost in a retail shop, a garden store, a catalog.

we happily loaded up this small sweet table and readily re-homed it on that spot on the deck, placing a soft green petite licorice plant on top.

every day – several times a day – we step outside and are deeply sated by this place of sanctuary. we wander to each plant, each herb, each grass, our aspen tree, and marvel at the growth in this hot-humid-greenhouse-type summer. we express, once again, gratitude for this space and its stuff.

and we plan our next trip – just to stroll about, to tell stories as we see items with which we had grown up, to goof about purchasing items completely out of our taste or – sometimes – completely out of taste at all. it is always an adventure.

to borrow from home goods advertising, we go finding. only our finds are the things people no longer want and wish to sell, the items that may have ended up disposed of, tossed out. our finds are filled with the magic of repurpose. they have stories we don’t know and can only imagine. they have new stories we have created for them. in turn, they create a place of tranquility and easy serenity.

and in some small way, we have saved the earth – even just a little – by saving one more thing from ‘away’.

*****

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bubbles, lace, crystal and tulle. [d.r. thursday]

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?

there’s plenty of other stuff that can go.

*****

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not so ruthless. [two artists tuesday]

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.

*****

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“i know you can do it.” [merely-a-thought monday]

inside a what-is-now-considered-vintage liz claiborne barrel purse was a treasure. not unzipped in years, i unpacked it the other day. i found a rattle, two small children’s board books, photographs in one of those plastic wallet picture thingies, a couple expired credit cards, a slew of emery boards, faded receipts i could no longer read, old chapstick, a collection of assorted pens and pencils, a few lists, some coins and two tiny mystery keys, a few notes from my girl, cars on scraps of paper drawn by my boy, and a card in the envelope it was mailed in. every now and then you stumble upon a treasure you forgot you had.

my sweet momma was famous for her handwritten letters; most of our family would easily recognize her handwriting, even in a crowded handwriting sampling, even years after last seeing it. this little card in my old purse was clearly something i carried around for some time. it was a note of reassurance, a note with great empathy, a note of encouragement. she mailed it early in january 1989, just a few months after i moved to wisconsin. still in the middle of homesickness and adjustment, though – as i realize now – she must have been feeling loneliness as well, she wrote to me. and she penned six words that i remember her repeating throughout my life:

“i know you can do it.”

those words – just six – can make all the difference.

momma was a glass-half-full type. her fervent cheering-on was a solid part of her nurturing. she fostered support with easy acceptance of failure, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” she didn’t list to the negative, nor did she wallow in it. in all her life, from early in marriage my dad MIA and then a POW in world war II, to losing her first baby within a day of her birth while my dad was imprisoned and she knew nothing of his whereabouts, to losing her grown son to lung cancer, to standing by my dad in his own lung cancer, a myriad of rough patches, to being left alone with my dad gone to face a double mastectomy at 93. no matter the challenge, she faced it down. she knew she could do it. and, despite any enormity, she left you with no doubt. even though her heart was thready and vulnerable, her positive spirit was contagious, her strength a force in the world.

these times – the pandemic and all it has wreaked, personal physical injuries or illnesses, job trials, isolation and loss of too much and too many to list – have cued up a range of mountains for each of us to scale. my mom’s “good morning merry sunshine” couples with her “live life, my sweet potato.” lines of counterpoint for melodies in life that are askew, her words brace against the storm. my sweet momma did not give up and she did not expect you to either. “you got this,” would be her brene brown shortcut message. she stuck with it all and rode each complicated wave, each complexity, each twist. she lives on in my daughter tearing down a run on a snowboard. she lives on in my son setting up a beautiful new place with his boyfriend. she lives on in the love her granddaughters and grandson bestow upon their children. she lives on in me.

in these times, with all its obstacles daring us to succumb, i can hear her. “i know you can do it,” her voice whispers to my heart.

*****

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the old file cabinets. [k.s. friday]

it's a long story

two old file cabinets.

the old file cabinets are in the closet in the studio.  at some point i organized all – well, most of – my music, lugged a couple metal cabinets up from the basement and spent a few days filing.  there’s overfill in a few cardboard bank boxes on the floor.  maybe someday i’ll get to those.

yesterday i was looking for a piece of music i thought i had.  i went to the drawer it should be in and starting rifling through the books and sheet music.  every title i looked at brought back memories:  “moon river” made me think of my uncle allen, who took voice lessons and sang that song beautifully.  “all i need” made me think of days at moton school center, comparing ‘general hospital’ notes with lois over lunches of peanuts and diet cokes.  “the rose” made me think of earlier years of promise and love.

i forgot about what i was searching for and dragged out a pile of music, sheets spilling out onto the floor as i struggled to pull them from their tightly filled drawer.  books – collections of artists or full transcribed albums – called my name, begging to see the light of day.  i whispered to them i would be back for them.   it has probably been decades since they were opened.

standing at the piano, not another thought in my head, i started shuffling through sheet music and playing.  it was no longer 2020, transported instantly back to the 70s, the 60s, the 80s.

had i opened a different drawer i would have found all my old piano books, my old organ music – tools of a student learning her eventual trade.  in those drawers are the books my children used for their music lessons, for band and orchestra.  in those drawers are the books i used as i attempted junior high oboe and college trumpet lessons.  in those drawers are the pieces that kept me on the bench for hours as a child and then as a teenager, practicing, playing, dreaming.

other drawers yield a plethora of more advanced piano and organ music, years of accumulated resources.  there are drawers of choir music, both sacred and secular, from years and years of directing and conducting work.  and still others house the scores of music i have written, staff paper and pencil, finished in calligraphy pen.

it made me want to just clear a day off.  liberate my mind from every worry, every task, every watching-the-time responsibility.  brush off the dust of the dark drawers from the lead sheets and scores and play.

i’d love to gather a whole group of friends around the piano and sing through john denver and billy joel songs, through england dan and john ford coley’s “we’ll never have to say goodbye again” and paul mccartney’s “maybe i’m amazed” and david soul’s “don’t give up on us” and the carpenters’ “bless the beasts and the children” and led zeppelin’s “stairway to heaven”,  through carole king and james taylor and pablo cruise.  through the ‘great songs of the sixties’ book and the ‘sensational 70 for the 70s’ book and fake books from all time.   just take a day – a whole day – and sing.  and remember together.

in light of the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic, this would have to be virtual, i suppose.  so that might not be such a good idea.  but maybe d and i could just take that day.  think of nothing else but music and where it has brought us, where it brings us.  our long stories.

a few things can instantly place you back in a moment.  songs, scents, pictures.  a whiff of my sweet momma’s favorite perfume has me immediately missing her.  john denver singing anything off any number of albums of his that i owned places me in my room hanging out on my beanbag chairs with my slick 3-in-1 turntable/8-track/cassette stereo or driving my little bug around the island.  wings’ “silly love songs” or elton’s “don’t go breaking my heart” and i can feel the hot sand under my beach towel at crab meadow.

two old file cabinets.  filled to the brim.

so many treasures.

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the storage unit. [two artists tuesday]

storage unit copy

on my nightstand next to the bed are two frames.  both written in little-kid-writing, they are notes i saved from long ago.  one is from My Girl and it reads, “goodnight mom” surrounded by hearts.  the other is from My Boy and it has two words on it, “craig” (with a backwards g) and “mom” and has hearts filling up the rest of the notepaper.  each night i see these as i wish them both, from far away, goodnight, sweet dreams, restful sleep.

i come by this threadiness honestly.

we were in florida visiting; two of the days we were there, despite bright sunlight and temperatures in the 80s, we spent in a storage unit.  what was left of my parents’ belongings was packed in boxes, stacked in a unit, waiting for us to put our eyes on all of it and decide what to do with each of these things.  my mom’s impulse was to keep things, especially paper.  photographs and slides aside, there were files and files – some of which we will wade through later.  there were boxes of mugs and baskets and trinkets, a kaleidoscope of the pieces of life, carefully packed by my sister and brother-in-law during a time of sadness, a time that was not ripe with paring down or organizing, a time that is difficult for anyone who has packed up a house. larger items were already distributed – furniture given away or passed down to the next generation.  but these boxes….

i was quite sure that, even if i hadn’t seen anything in any of the boxes, i had all i needed….my treasures of my sweet momma and my poppo are tucked in close to my heart and i have physical memories of them around me in our home.  they are not the high-priced treasures you might think people would save or claim.  instead, they are small, meaningful, invaluable and thready things that speak to me.  old calendars of my mom’s, my dad’s small rickety wooden boxes from his workbench, glasses from which my dad sipped his scotch, a flannel shirt my mom wore that matched my dad’s, a board with hooks that is wood-burned with the word “keys” and hung in our growing-up house for as long as i can remember…

spending time in the storage unit, surrounded by memories and the fading scent of my mom’s perfume and their house, i was heartened to see that i actually could go through and pare down.  it gives me hope about our own basement.  the real things of our past – sweet treasured memories – are not things.  everyone gets meaning from and sees value in different stuff.  two days in the storage unit reminded me again of that.

this time i didn’t cry.  i laughed with my momma, who, no doubt, was rolling her eyes in heaven over the fact that she had saved sooo many pieces of paper…paid bills, old house contracts, warranties from appliances long gone, car receipts from several cars ago.  a collection of life gone by, i know she smiled when every now and then we stumbled onto something i loved to touch….i kept the little scrap of paper that fluttered to the floor that my mom had written my full birth name on…i kept a couple calendars with my poppo’s handwriting…i kept a tiny folder of maps my mom collected in her curiosity about the changing world…i kept my dad’s brown suede cap, the one i bought him a million years ago…i kept a manila folder of letters i had written to them over the years – that my momma saved…these pieces of evidence of who they were, heirlooms of what was most important to them.

i vowed, once again, to go through, give away, sell the things in our own home that are not necessary.  but those bins in the basement labeled “kirsten” and “craig”?  those will stay.  i will delight in going through the artwork and stories and notes and school projects from their childhood and growing up.  and some day, maybe they too will see how infinitely important each of the baby steps and adult steps they have taken are to me.  and maybe some of the thready treasures i have left behind will give them pause and, maybe, they will save a scrap or two, a calendar, a notebook of unpublished songs, photographs, something that reminds them of what was most important to me – the thready things that are memories of love, of family, of them.

it wasn’t sunny or 82 degrees inside the storage unit.  but it was warm in a whole other way.

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