It’s been a while since I got a second to post in here, and
I thought I’d better before Google decides it’s an empty warehouse and yanks it
from their servers. I’ve been
cleaning. It’s been eye-opening. And eye-watering, from all the dust.
Ever wonder how you accumulate so much crap over the
years? I know there’s such a thing as
keeping things for sentimental reasons, but seriously…how many family Christmas
cards do you need to open and sigh over before you have enough boxes of them to
build a jet hanger? How many stuffed
animals do you need to coo over (“Ohhhh, look at widdle teddy!”) before widdle
teddy smothers you one night in your sleep?
Last week I just had to grab my past by its balls – or whatever
appendage it has – and say, in the immortal words of Queen Elsa of Arendelle,
“Let It Go.”
 |
| Get that crap outta my house. |
The purge began slowly, and the first thing that went was
probably 15 years of dust on my desk in the hallway. Hey, I don’t dust unless I absolutely have
to. With three cats in the house, it’s fruitless. So, armed with my trusty vacuum cleaner
(which scares the living shit out of the cats, and kept them out of my way), I
sucked up nearly an entire canister of dust, dead stinkbugs, and unidentifiable
sprinklings of questionable substances.
Then I went through 2 bottles of Pledge Multi-Surface Cleaner Spray –
which just let me spray everything because I was too damned lazy to go find the
Windex and Old English and all the other cleaners – and several dusting cloths,
which had to be thrown away because God knows my laundry machine would have run
screaming for hills when it saw the amount of crud it was to clean off of these
things.
Two days later, I had four boxes of old video tapes that we
hadn’t watched in years, another of books that had lost their charm (seriously,
who reads The Chronicles of Narnia in
chronological order?), stuffed animals, jewelry I never wear, old tools, stationery (remember how we used to write actual letters to people?), and lots and lots of other stuff. I was pretty proud of my accomplishment and
was ready to turn everything in to Goodwill that afternoon. But in this cleaning journey, I found out
that even though letting go of some of your past is necessary, other parts of
it just have to stay.
I found out that I had several miniature piano figurines,
two of which were matching music boxes that played “Memory” from Cats.
One of them has my name engraved on it. I have no idea who gave them to me, but when I wound one up and it tinkled out that lovely song, I cleaned it and set it back on the shelf. Another had gorgeous Chinese enamel that had been buried under the
aforementioned dust, and was lined with golden silk. Inside was a charm pendant with my initials
carved on it, which I realized my mother had given me for my high school
graduation. I always wondered what had
happened to it, and always assumed it had fallen off of one of my necklaces. Needless to say, that went into my jewelry
box immediately.
Underneath the clutter on my desk (which included my Bingo
basket, a Mickey Mouse hat, and a small fire extinguisher, for starters) were several of
those little cards they give out at funeral homes when you go to a
viewing. I can never throw these away,
it just seems wrong to do so. I always put
them in my big desk Bible, along with obituaries, in the section with Psalm 23, so that's where these went too.
A box under my desk was covered in cobwebs and dust. Inside was every award I have ever won at
work, including pictures of me receiving such awards with old bosses, some of
whom have died. They were restacked in
the now-clean box, and the pictures were carefully stored in a folder beside
them.
Two old dolls on one of the bookshelves were dressed in
Disney princess gowns that I’d purchased back in the late 90’s. The dresses were so covered in dust that they
needed to be vacuumed off, and they pretty much disintegrated when I tried. I remembered I had a box somewhere with these
dolls’ dresses in it – something I’ve had since I was 7 years old and hadn’t
opened in God knows when. After about 20
minutes of searching, I finally found it, under my bed, and it was hilarious to
see the old “Keep Out! This Means You!”
signs and stickers I had all over it. Inside
were three old baby blankets – one that my grandmother had knitted, and two
that my sister used to use in her doll pram when we were very little. There were all the clothes, all made by my
grandmother – capes, dresses, shoes. I
sat there for a long time, unfolding and holding up little doll dresses. I also saw there were miniature dolls tucked
in the corner, swaddled, with heads on a Swiss-dotted doll pram pillow, and wee
little stuffed animals – a bunny and a chick – “sleeping” beside them, and
recalled that all of my dolls used to have dolls and toys of their own. They were still tucked in. They’d been like that for years. I suddenly had a childish impulse that if I
moved them, I’d wake them up, and I couldn’t bear to do that.
I found two little matching dresses and took a long time
dressing these old dolls, combing their hair, putting on their shoes. I put them back in their holders and set them
back on the book case and on impulse, I stuck their hands together. I swear they smiled at me. A week later, they’re still holding hands,
and I smile back as I walk past.
Memories are something, aren’t they?
And yes, I found about 10 family Christmas cards…and yes, they’re
going in the box in the shed. I have two
boxes full, and this one’s about full. Some things just can’t be tossed. Guess I’d better start on that jet hanger.
Enjoy your own spring cleaning journey.
--Rebecca
