Metal Fencing

Dat 354: Metal Fencing

I listened to Helen Macdonald speaking about H is for Hawk today, and T.H. White, and I thought about chickens, and bees, and raptors. I don't intend to have chickens again, not unless I have a friendly neighbor who wants to share them. Honeybees seemed like a more sensible pursuit - they only need to be monitored every week or three - but having a systemic allergy has crossed bees off my list.

The big thaw has cleared the path to more chicken stuff, including this metal fencing that we put along the top of the fence to keep the chickens from flying the coop. For a while, one of the hens was wandering, laying eggs all around the property and annoying the neighbors.

There is a Michigan Hawking Club. Who knew?

I'm not really dreaming of becoming a falconer. It's a lifestyle more than a hobby, perhaps even more than beekeeping. But I understand the appeal. Once trained, hawks don't need fences. Like bees, they are both tame and wild, domestic and free.

Everything seems like a metaphor these days.

Address Book

Day 348: Address Book

Another casualty of the Information Age: address books. Where we once used the mighty pen to record information, we now use the cloud. Where we once used our brains to remember the phone numbers of our closest friends and family, we now use speed dial. Our brains we use to remember passwords. 

This little black book is documentary evidence of how transient we are. Less than ten years old, and so many of the names, addresses and telephone numbers out of date

This time, I completely forgot about photographing the object before I got ride of it. Guess I am distracted. 

Penguin, Pirate Ship, Construction Worker and Cowboy

Day 345: Penguin, Pirate Ship, Construction Worker and Cowboy

There's something old-fashioned, almost quaint, about these little plastic figures. I wonder if my father played with toys like these back in the 1940s. Maybe a few survived until he left for college in 1957, just as these few survived Sam's mock battles, barters and forays.

Granted, plastic (and all its environmental bads) isn't so old-fashioned. Just yesterday, I heard about a woman who attempted to give up plastic for Lent. Toothpaste, shampoo, toilet paper - she was able to live a fairly normal lifestyle except for a few staple items. I guarantee, though, that every mother would rather have toy soldiers made from plastic than from lead. Let the Doldrums be damned.

Today I'm not worrying about lead toys. We've decided to allow Sam to drive himself to Wixom tonight for two soccer games. Just under eight months with a driver's license. I hope and pray that he paid attention in driver's ed to those dire warnings about speed limits and merging.

Time moves inexorably forward. Kids grow up and leave home, parents get older. When the kids are little, you keep lead out of the toybox. You pull over when the babies unfasten their seat belts. You choose G movies and Teletubbies. You make sure they wear hats and mittens, warm coats and boots. You sing them to sleep, perhaps occasionally catching them under the covers with a flashlight. You watch their grades, feed them a home-cooked meal, and drive them to soccer games. It's a lot of work, and in some ways, it's the easy part.

Later, you let them drive themselves, a half hour on the freeway on a wintery Saturday night. You let them choose their college and their major. You give them unlimited screen time. You can't make them read, or eat right, or sleep the right number of hours. You can't make them do their homework, or walk the dog, or get to class on time. You don't choose their friends.

Next thing you know, they are stronger, faster, smarter than you. They see better, think better, reach farther. You're like Wile E. Coyote, chasing the roadrunner off a cliff, legs pumping for a just a moment before gravity takes over.

Free fall.

Little Bag of Toys

Day 332: Little Bag of Toys

I remember being eight years old and imagining, really imagining, what it would be like to be 18 years old. I was standing in the laundry in our house on Frederick Drive. The door to the garage was open, and the garage light was off. I remember telling myself, "Someday, I will be 18 years old." I wasn't 100% sure I'd get there. The Cold War was on, and I thought the odds were pretty good that I'd get vaporized first.

Our lives, and what we do, and who we know, and what we own, are fleeting. These little toys have already bloomed and withered like spring ephemerals, while the kids grew up and grew interested in other things. This is a truth I prefer not to ponder.

Lately, many of my cohort have aging parents, ill or dying or already passed on. So I've been thinking and talking a lot lately about the detritus of a life, a full house of stuff that needs to be sorted and distributed, sold or thrown away or given away, and how for most people, stuff has a lot of symbolism and sentiment attached to it.

Sometimes siblings fight over what's left. As though the stuff will stand in somehow for the parent who's gone. Or perhaps the children never got enough - love or stuff or structure or recognition - and this is their last chance for sufficiency. Or perhaps the children are still competing with each other to the very end, still trying to even things out, still trying to be on top. But then, sometimes the siblings get through it just fine, dividing the goods with kindness or declining to take anything. Sometimes the deceased can't let go, leaving detailed instructions about who gets what.

Sometimes there are no instructions at all, and sorting it out takes years. There was a house across the street at Gros Cap, up in the U.P., that we watched fall into ruin while the siblings fought about who got what. Eventually the house disappeared altogether, like a reflection in a rippled pond.

We've got bits of stuff around our house, souvenirs of ancestors we don't know, or ancestors we did know. A chipped FiestaWare bowl and an old Shaker desk, a bone china cocoa set and a heavy crystal vase. Lonely single survivors of somebody's long and forgotten life.

Now I sometimes imagine what it will be like to be 80 years old.

I'm pretty sure that I'll take a neat, clean house for granted. I probably won't have a basket full of homemade ugly sock dolls or little plastic toys. I'll have more aches and pains. If I keep doing yoga, I may be able to keep up a pretty good walking pace. I'll most likely be an orphan by then, and I bet I dream vivid dreams about my parents. Some of my good friends will be dead. I'll watch more t.v. than I do now; I won't be working. I might not see very well, so I'll listen to books on tape. I might be a grandmother. I might have a small, walkable dog, or I might have a cat, or I might live in an assisted living facility that doesn't allow pets. I might be lonely.

Eighty is only 30 years away. I remember 30 years ago very well. Thirty years seems like nothing.

I'm not 100% sure I'll get there.

Camel-Colored Pea Coat

Day 325: Camel-Colored Pea Coat

I'm taking a page out of Jeff Plakke's playbook and getting rid of something that's really nice. I haven't worn this coat all winter, and I'm pretty sure I'll never wear it again. I got two great coats at the start of the season, and they fit better and make me feel cuter than this one.

Still, this one is almost new. It's high quality. It looks professional.

Jeff says he's teaching himself to let go of good stuff by imagining the person on the other end of the transaction. The one who gets the find.

Who doesn't love a good Salvation Army find? I got a great pair of Dansko shoes once. A pair of J. Jill pants with the tags still on. An Anne Klein mustard-colored felt jacket. A pair of stoneware bowls, oven safe. Bake-King cake pans with the pivoting cutter like my mother used to have.

If nobody wanted to give away the almost new, high quality, professional-looking stuff they never wear, I'd never get a good find. By giving away this coat, I'm keeping the good find karma flowing.

When this is all over, I'm celebrating with a thrift store crawl.

World Cup Games on VHS

Day 323: World Cup Games on VHS

When I was a kid my grandfather used to tell stories about the way things were when he was a boy. Once, he snuck his mother's wool blanket out on a camping trip. The boys made a bonfire on the beach, and the blanket got singed. He hid it in the bottom of the cedar chest, but the smell of smoke led her to it. Boy, did he get a whipping! Imagine that: ten-year-old boys camping on Lake Michigan, alone with a bonfire. Another time, he was riding on a horse-drawn double-decker sleigh in Muskegon. The sleigh crashed; everyone on the bottom died, but he was thrown clear. Back in those days, he said, a Baby Ruth bar the size of a football only cost five cents.

When my grandfather was a boy, the stars throbbed in the sky like pinholes to heaven. People went to bed when the sun set, and got up with the sun rose in the morning. The city streets were mostly unpaved; sometimes, they were paved in slippery red brick. Bicycles were new. People bought food from familiar shopkeepers or farmers, and put it in a basket to carry it home. Store bought bread was a special treat.

I got a look at my grandfather's college application a couple weeks ago, pulled from the archives at the Bentley Historical Library. Handwritten, and including a self-assessment of his intellectual capabilities, industry, and scholastic achievement. A couple of sentences about the latest book he'd read, and a postage stamp sized photograph of himself.

When I was growing up, I felt so modern. My grandfather never had t.v.! Not even a radio! No telephone! He didn't have a car! Didn't need one...no interstate! Women couldn't vote, interracial marriage was illegal, and my grandfather played both offense and defense with a real leather helmet and a hand-stitched soft leather ball!

Now I have teenagers, and in their eyes, my own childhood is as quaint and obsolete as my grandfather's was to me. Remember how exciting it was to go to the video store, choose whatever movie you wanted to see, and bring it home to watch it? Remember when a 50 pound personal computer that wouldn't quite fit in the trunk of your car replaced that old manual typewriter, and your word processor allowed you to edit without having to retype the whole thing? Remember when answering machines allowed people to leave a message, even when you weren't at home? Remember when cable t.v. gave you better reception and no advertising?

Wow, that was cool!

Suddenly, I'm more sympathetic to my grandmother, who used always to tell us about her friends and their diseases. Every kid's favorite topic. The days tick past, and I don't notice that wrinkles are a little deeper, or knees a little creakier, or hair a little grayer. Mine, and yours. But lately, I've been to more funerals than in my whole life before. My friends' parents are getting sick, or dying. Once or twice, it's my own friends who are sick, or dying.

The older generation is the front line. I've been soldiering away in the back phalanx, taking it one day at a time. Soccer practices, oil changes, breakfast, vaccinations, budget season, choir performances, Christmas, grocery shopping, car trips, thank you notes, elliptical machine, solitaire, haircuts, diaper changes, yoga classes, driver's training, weddings, coffee dates, trips to the library, toilet plunging, junk mail, cooking, sleep.

And now the front lines are starting to falter, and it's sad, and it's scary, and it's just life. Moving and moving on, like a river. Always changing. Always the same.

Last of the Bee Stuff

Day 321: Last of the Bee Stuff

Our mission-related groups are coming on Thursday afternoon, including Ann Arbor Backyard Beekeepers, aka, A2B2, a group I am proud to say I named. An opportunity to get rid of the very last of my beekeeping stuff, a medium box with a single frame and some honeycomb. I used it as a demonstration at the Things with Wings event at the Gardens last year, and it's been sitting on top of the bookshelf in my office ever since.

Meghan (my former beekeeping mentor) will put it to good use. At least I still have a dozen jars of honey.

Sewing Stand Contents

Day 309: Sewing Stand Contents

I feel like I'm at mile 20 of a marathon. Close enough to the finish line that I don't want to quit, but far enough that I'm not sure I can make it. I felt an enormous sense of relief this morning when my eyes lighted on my antique sewing stand. Not only have I not yet riffled through it for things to get rid of, but it is actually overstuffed and disorganized. Woot, woot!

Imagine my joy when I realized that the box contained two packages of "Cover Your Own Buttons" and one package of snaps for handmade baby clothes. From the packaging, I assume these were manufactured in the 1950s. I am quite certain I will never use them. They came in a big bag of buttons I bought at Kiwanis years ago. I love buttons. Also in the box, a baggie of unopened Kirsch curtain hooks (I don't have a rod to match), a single curtain ring, a few little packages of embroidery thread (I don't embroider) and a single doll's shoe. One day down, 56 to go.

Still in the antique sewing box are about a dozen souvenir patches. Sam began collecting these at a very young age. In elementary school, he was famous, not just for his likable Sam-ness, but also for his distinctive red backpack, which was covered with patches from all over the country. An alligator from The Alligator Farm in St. Augustine. A mountain from our Alaskan cruise. A Junior Ranger patch from the Sleeping Bear National Seashore. When we ran out of room on his backpack, I began sewing them onto his little blue rolling suitcase. At some point, the patches began to come off the luggage. I started falling behind on my sewing tasks. And then, suddenly, before I could get caught up, he turned 13. From that point forward, standing out was a bad thing. We replaced his interesting and famous elementary school backpack with a gray and navy North Face, and he's never looked back. Three more sentimental things for me to be unable to let go of: the backpack, the little blue suitcase, and the stack of unattached patches.

And another sentimental thing: my button box. This is a Danish cookie tin filled to the brim with buttons of all shapes and sizes. Metal, plastic, leather, tortoiseshell, bone. Big, small, rear mounted, four holes, two holes, red, blue, black, yellow, sparkling, matte, new, used, vintage, antique. Heavy and light, round, square, triangular, irregular. Matched sets and one-offs. My mother had a button box just like it when I was a kid. I would spend hours sorting and examining the buttons. I still do. A few months ago, Emma and I spent an entire afternoon making stretchy bracelets and earrings out of the button box.

Another thing I can't get rid of.

The stuff project is like a death row prisoner when the governor can't quite make up his mind. One more day to live.

Last of the Stuffed Animals

Day 308: Last of the Stuffed Animals

A day when the difference between "What should I keep?" and "What should I get rid of?" is in stark contrast. I don't seem to have the willpower to reduce the stuffed animal contingent to one large basket. There are just too many that I can't bring myself to get rid of...even knowing that stuffed animals have no intrinsic value. I can't even bring myself to reduce them to one (or two, or three, or four) per person.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, there are so very many stuffed animals that I just can't seem to part with, and I don't know why. Looking around my house every day, trying to find that one more item to get rid of, I'm starting to see whole categories that I am still clutching, even if I never use them. Gifts. Heirlooms. Sentimental things. A moving truck's worth. These:

• The many handmade dolls my mother gave us, except for this one pilly gingerbread man, who's tattered puffball buttons are almost separated from his gingerbread body. I still have Mary (the little girl in pink), and a knitted sailor man in blue, and a boy with a red and yellow striped scarf. Also, from my mother are Raggedy Ann and Andy, made from fabric on the sewing machine

• The many handmade dolls my children made, including many intentionally ugly sock dolls Sam made from an ugly sock doll book, and a hand-knitted bear named Greg (yes, another Greg) which Emma made for Sam, and sock doll likenesses of me and Rich that Emma made with my mother (the little blond woman doll is always looking away from the slightly larger bearded man doll with the curly red hair), and a little calico girl doll Emma made in sewing class in kindergarten
• A bear stuffed with cherry pits that you can heat in the microwave and use like a sweet-smelling hot water bottle, a gift from Nadin because she loves hot water bottles so
• A giant tiger that Dad got for Sam at Costco. It's leaking little styrofoam pellets, but Sam loved it so, I can't stand to give it away
• A giant Eeyore, a giant floppy brown dog, and many giant fish pillows that make convenient lounging cushions
• A little stuffed dog - Elizabeth's first gift to Emma - and a little stuffed bear - my first gift to Emma
• Emma's collection of stuffed pigs
• An Ugly Doll knock-off that one of them won at the Burns Park Ice Cream Social
• A lifelike German Shepherd Dog and a giant snake, gifts from Miranda

We also have six small covered pillows. Emma sewed the covers and embroidered a note for each of her elementary school teachers on them. She intended to give them as gifts, but never did.

Eraser and Index Cards

Day 277: Erasers and Index Cards

The resolution was to get rid of one thing, every day for a year.  It was not to write, every day for a year.  That part was incidental, merely a way to keep track of what I'd had and what I'd gotte rid of, and what I'd thought about and learned in doing so. 

So I'm giving myself the day off.  Back to the beach.

Painted Blown Egg

Emma loved this little painted egg
in a display case, like her mother
before her. I bought it in San Francisco
when I was in seventh grade and kept it
on my bookcase for decades, until Emma
took it into her own room years ago.

Day 259: Painted Blown Egg

 First the little egg stand came
unglued and got lost. Then, just
a few days ago, the egg broke.
Next trip to SF, I know what
I'm getting for a souvenir.

My little egg is 18 years old today. Her first birthday away from home. There was an article in the New York Times just a couple days ago about the hidden risks of children becoming legal adults.

No, I will not ask her to complete a living will or give me power of attorney. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it - if I come to it - and I hope I never do.

I remember what I was doing eighteen years ago today, of course: walking around and around and around the block in San Francisco, hoping to induce labor after my waters broke. And then walking around the block again. I should have realized it would be my last carefree walk around the block for many years to come. How little I appreciated the freedom of opening the door and walking out it, easy as a marble rolling down a waterslide. 

I'm free again, but the freedom feels more like a missing molar. It doesn't hurt, but you notice it's missing. Your tongue keeps exploring the gap, and then your finger. Yep, the tooth is gone. Yep, you can still eat an apple, and brush and floss, and smile. No one sees anything different. But you know that something important is gone.

It's amazing how quickly she turned into a human being again. A few weeks at college, and suddenly her room is cleaner, and she likes the food we cook for dinner, and she doesn't mind a passing kiss on the cheek. I never liked that her birthday fell between Thanksgiving and Christmas - sometimes it felt a little like an afterthought - but I'm so grateful she was home last weekend for birthday cake. I hope she's enjoying the Zingerman's brownies and colorful birthday candles in her dorm tonight. I hope she feels pretty in her new outfit, and that someone sings happy birthday to her in person (besides me, over the phone). I'm pretty sure she's not going to rush off and join the army. I'm pretty sure that I'll agree with how she votes. I'm pretty sure she's going to graduate from college. I'm pretty sure she's going to be just fine. She already is: mighty fine.

Happy birthday, my sweet little E.

Garden Bed Map and Watercolor Pad

Day 230: Garden Bed Map and Watercolor Pad

 These two items are great examples of things that I've been holding onto because they might come in handy some day: vestiges of hobbies that have fallen by the wayside. How likely is it that I'll take up watercolors again? At best, I was a dabbler. A very shallow dabbler. The garden bed map is one of my little efficiency devices: with its little movable squares, I don't need to redraw the map every year, I can just move the squares around. (Even with a trowel in my hand I can't help but dream up business process improvements.) These things have been stored on our lovely built-in bookshelf for several years, annoying me by covering the pretty wood with clutter.

I am responsible for systematizing the stuff at two organizations whose primary function is to manage collections: an archive and a botanical garden. I've come to realize that the urge not to get rid of stuff-that-might-come-in-handy is almost inescapable, like the urge to turn your head and look at an accident on the freeway. It's one reason we have traffic jams.

In the midst of cleaning and organizing tools and supplies at the botanical gardens, the flat tires on the garden carts are getting replaced. Because, guess what? We found a box of replacement wheels!

Having too much stuff practically guarantees that the stuff you have won't come in handy. Instead, the stuff most likely to be useful - the stuff that should have been carefully selected to remain in your space, visible and accessible - is buried and forgotten. Just like that box of wheels got buried under a pile of broken tools and old microwaves.

The odds that I'll use this pad of watercolor paper and that garden map are pretty low. On the other hand, it's an absolute certainty that every Saturday morning while I'm drinking my coffee in my Edith Bunker chair, I'm going to see the garden map and the pad of paper cluttering up my nice bookshelf, and feel annoyed.

Except not this week.

This week, my shelf just got a little cleaner.

Wooden Flute

Day 228: Wooden Flute

Although I'm the wind player in this family - and though I never play any wind instrument except the penny whistle these days - I still had to justify to Rich my decision to get rid of this wooden flute. My reasons are (1) we have another, better wooden flute (as well as a solid silver Gemeinhardt): (2) this wooden flute was stuck headfirst in the dearly departed ponytail palm and is corrupted; and (3) the kids will never want it, and if they do, see point number one. 

It took a supreme act of will to put it in the Goodwill box. Now that it's there, it is completely forgotten. Irrelevant.

Spider Plant

Day 227: Spider Plant

I have a problem. The hens have not given me an egg in more than two months. Winter is coming, and with it, a long vacation to visit Jane in Florida. We have no next door neighbor to take care of the hens while we are away. In the garage, our chicken feed pail is almost empty. To get chicken feed, one must drive all the way to the Tractor Supply Store twelve miles away, and pay $15 for a single bag of pellets.

We eat a lot of chicken. But somehow, I'm able emotionally to avoid connecting the nuggets with the gals out back. Don't get me wrong. Having chickens has increased my sympathy for battery chickens. It's not right to fatten up an animal so that it can't walk, and to keep it penned up even if it could walk, so that it spends its entire life in a tiny dark cube. I remember how unhappy the girls out back were last winter, when the cold and snow were so relentless.

For a while this summer, one of our hens was escaping every day. Yes, she was born a rambling hen. She'd fly the coop, scout around for a hidden spot to lay her eggs, and spend the rest of the day keeping our next-door-neighbor, Ben, company while he built his new front porch. Once, we got an unsigned note, presumably from a neighbor, asking us to keep our chickens out of their garden. Another time, a couple of college girls captured her and brought her back home. When Rich would arrive home from work, she'd come rushing up to greet him, and then squat down so he could pick her up and carry her back to the chicken run.

Contrast this to our dog, Harpo, who doesn't greet anyone until I get home, preferring instead to lounge on the back of the sofa, not even deigning to wag his tail in greeting.

All this adds up to a problem. We've got two hens who won't lay, who cost us money, who can't be boarded over Christmas, who can't survive untended, and whom we couldn't possibly slaughter, pluck and eat. The backyard chicken-keeper's dilemma.

That's the problem with living things. Even houseplants. I've got three. One is a cactus, which causes me no trouble. One is an asparagus fern, which looks like an awesome underseas plant but which sheds like a Christmas tree and irritates me all winter long. One is a spider plant, which looks like a bad hair day and barely survives the winter indoors. Every year, I tell myself I'll compost the houseplants at the end of the summer. Every year, I can't bring myself to do it. This year, I even left them outdoors until after the first hard freeze (that would be yesterday).

They refused to die.

In honor of the stuff project, I resolved finally to get rid of the spider plant and the asparagus fern rather than torture myself for another winter, cleaning up leaf particles and trying to find a space for them that gets enough light but won't hurt the wooden floors.

The unsentimental horticulturalists at work would roll their eyes, but in the end, I couldn't do it. First, I decided that instead of composting the asparagus fern, I'd give it to my mother. It looks so cool, and she's so good with plants. Then, I took a photo of the spider plant, emailed it to myself and marched it out to the compost container. Where I couldn't bring myself to dump it in. Instead, I rifled around in the recycling bin for a piece of cardboard, and wrote "FREE" on it, in big red letters. Carefully set it out on the street, where motorists and pedestrians would clearly see it. Told myself I could compost it tomorrow, if it's still out there.

Which brings me back around to the chickens.

How will a person who can't kill a houseplant get rid of two barren hens?

More Dog Stuff

Day 218: More Dog Stuff

Undercoat brush, pinch collar
bone and squeaker

The time has come to get rid of all of Chester's old things.

Ways in which Harpo is different from Chester:

Harpo: Small
Chester: Extra-large

Harpo: Stands on back feet and jumps
Chester: Laid down

Harpo: Scentless
Chester: Stank to high hell

Harpo: Either doesn't care what we want him to do, or is not smart enough to figure out what we want him to do
Chester: Knew what we wanted him to do and did it when we were in the room with him. Smart enough to figure out that when we were not in the room, he could do what he wanted

Harpo: Hair grows continuously, gets matted and must be shaved at the groomer's, making him look like a rat
Chester: Thick undercoat and overcoat, blows out once or twice a year covering furniture, rugs, and clothing

Harpo: High-pitched bark whenever anyone walks by
Chester: Deep loud bark whenever anyone moves around inside the house

Harpo: Alive and well
Chester: Dearly departed

Time to let go.

Chewbacca Doll, Matchbox Car, Flashlight, Phone Cord and Plastic Box

Day 214: Chewbacca Doll, Matchbox Car, Flashlight, Phone Cord and Plastic Box

I'm starting to notice the tiniest useless things these days. Things that wouldn't have warranted a blog post a hundred days ago. Things tucked away behind books or on top shelves. Unnoticed, forgotten, obsolete.

Yesterday, Rich made me promise that I would not get rid of any photographs. We've got two giant plastic boxes full of them, snapshots from the days before digital cameras. He says people love photographs. He says that if he had a pacemaker, I'd be eyeballing it, complaining that it's too squat and suggesting that someone else might get more value out of it than him.

What is the point of this project, now that I am running out of things to get rid of? I have a rule that says that everyone in the household has the right to refuse to get rid of anything they want. Sam can keep his hand puppets, and his Nerf guns and water pistols, his soccer balls and skim boards. Rich can keep his photographs, and his music gear.

I don't know what the next 152 days have in store. I may be just a little sorry for those heady days, months ago, when I gave away entire wheelbarrows full of electronics and cartons full of bedsheets. But I'm determined not to give up. I've already invested 213 days.

The funny thing is, though, that scraping the barrel is starting to make a difference in my daily life in a way that wheelbarrows never did. I ridiculed myself for the lameness of the KitchenAid owner's manual last week, but getting rid of that owner's manual has actually created more order than getting rid of the stack of owner's manual from the owner's manual file box in the more distant past. The KitchenAid owner's manual is so insignificant, I haven't really seen it since I placed it on that shelf. But now that it's gone, that little shelf is more orderly. It's easier to find the stuff I'm really looking for. When I reach into that shelf now, I get a little feeling of satisfaction. Yesterday, I framed a couple of lithographs, moved my mystery writer's teapot to the spot they'd been occupying, and made room on the little bookshelf below my mirror for lipstick and foundation. This morning when I put on my make-up, it was easy to see it, easy to apply it, easy to feel a frisson of pride for the work that went into making that little space more functional.

I liken it to getting your teeth cleaned at the dentist. Every day, you're brushing and flossing, freshening your breath and getting rid of the crumbs between your teeth. But at the dentist, they use  picks to scrape away the invisible tartar. It's a little uncomfortable, but at the end, your teeth feel clean. Really clean.

So that's what I'm doing now. Scraping tartar off my cupboards and shelves. I don't know if there are 153 more items to be scraped and cleaned away, and I'm resolved not to scrape away any enamel just for the sake of writing about it. But I'm eagerly awaiting that day when the entire property is clean, fresh and free of tartar. After that, who knows?

More Tax Records and Bank Statements

Day 212: More Tax Records and Bank Statements

These tax records and bank statements were in a big binder labeled "Pierce Sale and Shadford Purchase." That meant to me that the binder was full of documents about selling our flat in San Francisco and buying our first place in Ann Arbor, over sixteen years ago. I was surprised to find the binder. It was part of barrel scraping, reaching to the back of low shelves that haven't entered my consciousness in years. It seemed like a jackpot. There can be no need for documents about a house we haven't lived in for decades.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened it up and found a whole bunch more tax statements, including a handwritten individual 1040 of Rich's from 1995, the year we met, the last year we prepared individual tax statements. The last year that he prepared a tax statement at all.

There were seven years worth of tax statements in the big binder, including all the back-up documents. My father assured me that it is okay to throw away the back-up documentation and retain only the tax returns themselves, except for the previous three years.

He must be right.

He's a tax attorney.

Still, it was scary, putting all those back-up documents in the shredder pile. Bank statements, charitable gift receipts, medical receipts, interest statements and everything else. All in a box, ready for shredding.

Now that I'm 50, and getting age spots and cellulite and wrinkles and just generally getting that thin-skin look, I'm thinking a lot about growing older. In the words of my old neighbor, Barb Blue, the days crawl, the years fly. A cliche perhaps, but the years do fly. Suddenly, I'm more than middle-aged. I completely understand now what I never did before: when Papa (my father-in-law Bill) would tell me, as he often did, that he felt surprised when he looked in the mirror. That he felt just the same on the inside as he did when he was 30 years old.

Looking at that 1040 in Rich's hand, that individual tax statement from the year before we were married, and then that stack of eighteen tax returns, gave me that same feeling of surprised. I'm getting old! I've completed so many tax returns, I'm losing track of them! I've filed our taxes so many times now, it's easy!

Well, these things were easy to get rid of, too. One more day down, 154 to go. I think I saw another binder or two on that same shelf.

Twenty-Four Single Earrings

Day 209: Twenty-Four Single Earrings

For the life of me, I cannot keep track of objects. Keys, purses, reading glasses. Books, shoes, to-do lists. Socks, cell phones, sunglasses. I am constantly looking for lost things.

A few years ago, my sister gave me the gift of a dozen sets of dangling bead earrings. She made them herself. I use the word "set" intentionally. These were not pairs of earrings, but sets of three.

A special gift, for many reasons. Not least, because the sets of three were a signal: she sees me. She knows me.

She won't take it personally when the earrings begin to go missing.

Oh, I've set up systems. I've tried mindfulness training. I've tried getting duplicates (a pair of reading glasses on every end table!). I've tried having only one (with only one, perhaps I'll value it enough to know where it is!). I've tried racks and hooks and boxes.

Nothing works.

The trouble is, once an object has lost its immediate usefulness, my mind immediately turns to the next thing. Once the door is unlocked, the key has become completely irrelevant. Forgotten.

Rich tells me there are multiple intelligences. I believe I'm lacking in the intelligence category that allows a person to keep track of objects. No matter how hard I try, I just don't get it. I've got new sympathy for people who can't do math.

I'm sure you've figured out the end of this story: earrings in sets of three are thoughtful and touching, but for an object idiot, the outcome is inevitable. Delayed, but inevitable: single earrings. And if you love your earrings, it's hard to get rid of them.

The good news is, I've made a little progress as I've grown older, and stayed in the same house for over a decade. My purse is almost always hanging from the kitchen doorknob, a few steps from the side door where I usually enter. If it's not there, most likely I came in by a different door, near which I'll find it. My keys are most always in my purse, where I drop them reflexively when the door is unlocked. My eyeglasses are bright orange, so I can usually spot them from a distance, even if I don't have them on. My cell phone rings if you call it.

And, best of all, I've discovered that you can buy 200 plastic earring backs from Michael's for only $2.99. This has at least slowed the attrition rate for dangling earrings, by reducing the likelihood that they fall off unnoticed during the day. Now I just have to remember to hang them on the little earring rack that Sam made for me in eighth grade shop class.

Progress.

Clothes

Day 204: Clothes

Every spring and fall, I go through my clothes and get rid of anything I haven't worn in a year or more. There are always things I can't bring myself to get rid of. Like the beautiful purple silk dress I wore to my sister's wedding, approaching 20 years ago. I've only worn it once. I think it's time to let it go.

Here's the haul, and it's amazing how much there was. 

6 blouses

3 dresses

7 t-shirts

2 sweaters

1 jackets

3 pairs athletic shorts 

3 pairs dress pants

1 pair light summer pants

2 pairs sweat pants

1 pair dress jeans

1 pair Levi's

1 partridge in a pear tree

 I did keep the dress I got married in. 

Report Cards and Transcripts

Day 199: Report Cards and Transcripts

Right view and intention, right speech, action, and livelihood, right concentration, mindfulness, and effort. Little as I understand these concepts, I know enough to see that going through old report cards and transcripts makes it easy to stray from the eightfold path.

These old report cards take me back to a time when my self-esteem was low and my self-absorption was high, with the result that I didn't have a fun afternoon. The funny thing is, my grades were great and my scores were high. The folders were stuffed with stories I'd published, newspaper articles about me, blue ribbons for music competitions, diplomas and commencement programs, and varsity letters. Yet I remember distinctly feeling that I wasn't very smart, or very accomplished. No wonder I found it slightly depressing.

I hate report cards. The "A's" and "Outstandings" are practically invisible to me. My eyes go directly to the lowest measure. Why I was only "Developing" long division skills in third grade, when the rest of my math measures "Exceed Expectation"? I still battle the tendency to gloss over the positive and see only the negative when I look at a report card - nowadays, my childrens' instead of my own - and unfortunately I believe I often fall short on recognizing the good in them.

I think I understand why report cards are issued - they are a means to understand and track on which skills kids need to develop - but it's unfortunate that we formalize judging and labeling kids just when their self-image is most vulnerable. Once you leave school, you may get an annual performance evaluation, but at least you can kiss pop quizzes goodbye.

I couldn't yet bring myself to throw away my published stories and articles. Even 35 years later, I felt a small rush of pride over those 200 words in Seventeen Magazine with my byline. And yet, it's bittersweet. I haven't published anything in 15 years, except this blog. All that potential, and the realization, as I age, that the most optimistic disposition of this Rubbermade box - the collected memorabilia of a lifetime - will come to nothing more than a sentimental sorting exercise by my son and daughter, someday after I'm gone.

There's something about looking at the stuff I had as a teenager that makes me think like the teenager I was, which is exactly the kind of wrong view, wrong speech, and wrong action that made sorting these old boxes a right mindfulness challenge. What's so is, this afternoon, I sorted a big box of papers. The papers were yellow and musty. The Rubbermade box was heavy. I kept some of the papers, either for sentimental reasons, or because they are legal records. As a result of these efforts, there is less unneeded stuff in our basement, less dust, less mold. 

Perhaps what these records document the most is the love and pride of my parents, who kept all this in a file, labeled in my father's hand. Just my name.