Shoes I don't wear anymore
A huge umbrella and stand, used for outdoor art shows, before we got the tent
The outboard motor for the sailboat. Somewhere, the sails
Video Cassettes of "The School Yard Bully", produced by Regent Park Focus with some 7th graders I worked with at Mandela Park School
Boxes of old letters, cards, pieces of stories that never got written, clips from newspapers
A big bag of soft rubber balls, for juggling lessons every now and then
The acoustic guitar - Pocketwatch - I got for Christmas from Helene in 1977, and carried around with me when I was a cabbie, plucking through lonely half hours on Inman Square
The trumpet - Trixie - that my Dad bought me, for a hundred bucks, when I got serious about playing in 7th grade
Damian's abandonned golf clubs
Plastic 20-liter buckets for the juice that goes into our wine
Laundry
Batteries, light bulbs, screws and tools
Ponczka's canvasses, painted and not - and sketches and other exercises from her school days
Chairs, stored away for winter, from the back yard, the upper deck, or on their way to the trash
A bottle of expensive champagne, brought by an ex-lover to one of our parties years ago - we're waiting for the time to drink it
Summer jackets, the overflow of scarves and hats, including gifts, bought and handmade
The cat box and a bag of litter
Back up, semi-retired camping gear
It isn't time yet, for Spring cleaning
But a quietly building desire for order makes itself felt
Shuffling the familiar into some new configuration
Creating a model of my everyday, with highlights for the newness it makes possible
I'll look once more at the small souvenirs and tokens, reminding me of evenings and meetings and songs I would otherwise forget. Again, I will fail to discard them, needing their power to evoke the geniis I have been, in their way lightening the alluring weight of memories that carry me nowhere related to now.
Not time yet, but Time - that big wheel, pulverizing ambition, sweeping up the floor, putting everything in its place.
lovely.
ReplyDelete