fire, fire!!!
I had a phonecall from a friend last night. She's been following my progress with interest over the past couple of days. Peas in a pod, we were - she knew the proverbial Popular Boy, too. Apparently, I'm not the only one who got dinged as being malodorous. My heart breaks for you, it really does. I'm sorry you went through that. Sorry WE went through that.
But of course, the round isn't quite finished yet. I have come to the conclusion that I have some residual crap with the girls in the gym class, not related to that incident, but to others. Some emotional baggage.
When Grampa With the Yellow Shirt died, my Gramma lived in the house for a while but without the aide of my Grampa, she started wintering over in town, and then eventually rented in town year-round while the house at the homestead sat empty. When discussions began about whether or not to find her a senior's residence, the Orange Fairy and her sisters decided they ought to go and take inventory of how much stuff they were dealing with.
My memories of the house at the homestead are limited to the things I liked to spend hours looking at: the mishmash of knick-knacks, spoons, doilies, and oddities in the squat, round china cabinet, the mosaic of cracks on the colourful ceramic mugs with black Inuit art from the NWT, and the faded black and white pictures in bulbous-glassed ornate wooden frames on the walls. I never bothered to take note of the rest of the 'stuff' because I grew up surrounded by 'stuff.' In our house, it wasn't odd for there to be 83 quilts and blankets, 6 sets of dishes, 412 tea towels, 97 pairs of pants that don't fit or are out of style, a crate of toilet paper, and 53 bars of Ivory soap. So when my mother started listing off the things they were cleaning from the homestead, I wasn't shocked that it was there, but shocked I had never really noticed it. 3 violins, a deer head, enough triangle quilting squares to blanket half of Canada, several margarine tubs of coins, a bazillion sealers and lids, canning from God-knows-when, mountains of unworn clothes and shoes - some with the tags still on... After 2 weekends and countless carloads to the dump, the second-hand store, and home, it looked like they hadn't done a damned thing.
My other Gramma, my Dad's Mom, was neat as a pin, and not a packrat at all. How my father came to be one is a mystery. When he retired, he asked to store some stuff in my garage. When he died, my stepmom asked if she could store more of his stuff in my garage. His stuff takes up almost half the garage - books, Christmas decorations, woodworking and hobby tools he hadn't touched in decades, things he'd meant to fix but never got around to...
My sister makes a trip to the Orange Fairy's house each year, and part of her mission each trip is to purge. We've learned to help curb both my and my mother's packratting habits by avoiding certain traps, but we still manage to amass huge quantities of 'stuff' which we then sit and look at, cursing it for taking up space in our homes, utterly in capable of parting with it unless someone else wrenches it from our hands. Which is OK, because then we can blame THEM when we run out of styrofoam packing peanuts and expired Jell-o.
I've got packratting down to a science, though. I actually have luggage, for my emotional baggage. There, in the garage, behind the dollbaby crib Serejane no longer plays with and the screen for the projector that no longer has a slide carousel, is a lovely avacado green hard exterior satin-lined suitcase containing stacks and stacks (and stacks) of notes retained from junior high and high school. The naughty, the nasty, the funny - it's all there. Notes from boys, notes from girls, notes about boys and girls, nice notes, mean notes, love notes, hate notes...
My friend last night said, "Burn it."
But of course, the round isn't quite finished yet. I have come to the conclusion that I have some residual crap with the girls in the gym class, not related to that incident, but to others. Some emotional baggage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Grampa With the Yellow Shirt died, my Gramma lived in the house for a while but without the aide of my Grampa, she started wintering over in town, and then eventually rented in town year-round while the house at the homestead sat empty. When discussions began about whether or not to find her a senior's residence, the Orange Fairy and her sisters decided they ought to go and take inventory of how much stuff they were dealing with.
My memories of the house at the homestead are limited to the things I liked to spend hours looking at: the mishmash of knick-knacks, spoons, doilies, and oddities in the squat, round china cabinet, the mosaic of cracks on the colourful ceramic mugs with black Inuit art from the NWT, and the faded black and white pictures in bulbous-glassed ornate wooden frames on the walls. I never bothered to take note of the rest of the 'stuff' because I grew up surrounded by 'stuff.' In our house, it wasn't odd for there to be 83 quilts and blankets, 6 sets of dishes, 412 tea towels, 97 pairs of pants that don't fit or are out of style, a crate of toilet paper, and 53 bars of Ivory soap. So when my mother started listing off the things they were cleaning from the homestead, I wasn't shocked that it was there, but shocked I had never really noticed it. 3 violins, a deer head, enough triangle quilting squares to blanket half of Canada, several margarine tubs of coins, a bazillion sealers and lids, canning from God-knows-when, mountains of unworn clothes and shoes - some with the tags still on... After 2 weekends and countless carloads to the dump, the second-hand store, and home, it looked like they hadn't done a damned thing.
My other Gramma, my Dad's Mom, was neat as a pin, and not a packrat at all. How my father came to be one is a mystery. When he retired, he asked to store some stuff in my garage. When he died, my stepmom asked if she could store more of his stuff in my garage. His stuff takes up almost half the garage - books, Christmas decorations, woodworking and hobby tools he hadn't touched in decades, things he'd meant to fix but never got around to...
So I come by my pack-rat-ism honestly. I don't mean to cling to things for sentimental reasons. I don't mean to keep things on hand 'just in case.' I don't meant to buy enough to last another depression. But I do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My sister makes a trip to the Orange Fairy's house each year, and part of her mission each trip is to purge. We've learned to help curb both my and my mother's packratting habits by avoiding certain traps, but we still manage to amass huge quantities of 'stuff' which we then sit and look at, cursing it for taking up space in our homes, utterly in capable of parting with it unless someone else wrenches it from our hands. Which is OK, because then we can blame THEM when we run out of styrofoam packing peanuts and expired Jell-o.
I've got packratting down to a science, though. I actually have luggage, for my emotional baggage. There, in the garage, behind the dollbaby crib Serejane no longer plays with and the screen for the projector that no longer has a slide carousel, is a lovely avacado green hard exterior satin-lined suitcase containing stacks and stacks (and stacks) of notes retained from junior high and high school. The naughty, the nasty, the funny - it's all there. Notes from boys, notes from girls, notes about boys and girls, nice notes, mean notes, love notes, hate notes...
My friend last night said, "Burn it."
"But it's my Grandma's suitcase...."
"When will you ever use it?"
"I'm using it now..."
"Burn. It."
Tonight, the skeletons will be dancing in the fire.
Comments
What a perfect place for pieces of the discarded past! Burn them and let those skeletons dance!
I am incredibly proud of you and your most recent journey. It is forcing me to come to terms with some of my skeletons. Watching you go through your painful memories and look at them as objectively as you have is an inspiration to me.
I feel the need to tell some people the things I've left unsaid. Thank you Hope.
There's nothing better than a good fire to cleanse the soul. A shredder just doesn't cut it. Well it cuts it but it doesn't eliminate it. Well it does eliminate but it doesn't make you want to leap up and down with primal glee.