The Flight of time -- and its effects

Japonica, Spring 2014 - PL

 

 

                I’m so far keeping to my decision to dust, wash, scrub, throw away or move to another place all those things I took out of the three bedrooms when new carpet was laid. But it is slow going. And there’s so much OTHER stuff around here to get done.

                After pulling one small bookcase full of VHS tapes and books out of collegian Billy’s room, placing it beside its twin, I cleaned (even to steel-wooling the rusty chrome handles) one of the two-shelf rolling carts.

                Next was a plastic, lidless container with newspaper clippings, ideas for my novel, photos of the late Elizabeth Calico and the late tabby Cal. This box was first placed on top of a tall bookshelf in the northwest-corner bedroom. When son Gordon came home last spring, I turned it into a guest room and moved said box under the bureau.

                With a cup of fresh coffee (yes, at 6 p.m.), I sat down beside the coffee table where I placed it so I didn’t have to reach to the floor each time I selected something, put two cube-storage boxes near so I could—with a flick of the wrist—place DO NOT KEEP clippings in one, and the DO KEEP in the other.

                Ya’ll, these things were from 2005! My novel was in the preliminary stages so I’d kept everything that referred to the early 1900s. We still lived in Benton, so they were collected before we moved to Couchwood. Funny, though, in Benton, we lived on Couch Street!

                So I began pitching most of the stuff to the recycle/throwaway cube. I kept columns of Jay Grelen who took Richard Allin and Charles Allbright’s places in the humorous-folksy column of the daily state paper until he was moved (or moved himself) to another area of the organization.

                I kept articles on Donald Harrington, Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow and James Salter, all authors I’d read previously.

                Then came Katrina. Oh, how much newsprint it took to cover that horrendous event of ‘mean ol’ Mother Nature,’ as one homeowner was reported to have said. It went into the recycle box.

                During this sorting time, an evening thunderstorm blew up, but by the time I had filled the throwaway box, the sun was shining. I took that box, plus the week’s papers/cartons/plastics, out to the proper bin.

I never got back to the job. For I had pulled out a piece from a September ’05 PARADE about hoarders. AM I A HOARDER?

Oh, I can walk through this house without stepping over and around things—unless it’s cats—so I don’t think I qualify, but I’ve been in a home where the door wouldn’t open all the way because of the stuff behind it.

Before I’ve gotten all the things put back in the bedrooms, I made arrangements to have the floors refinished in the three front rooms. Oh-my-goodness! I thought the first job was tremendous. It pales beside the task of tearing down and moving out an office, a living room with five full bookshelves, a piano, two sofas and three chairs. Plus, the dining room with a table, buffet, TWO china cabinets chock-full of glassware that must be taken out before being moved.

Don’t call me during July. I’ll be unable to get to the phone. And don't call the police if you see me climbing through a back window from the porch into the house. That'll be my only access to the bathroom and bedroom.

After that, we’ll start on the kitchen floor.