Slow Progress

My house is not ordinary. It came from an uncommon start. My neighbor, having lived across the street all her life told me all about it. When the old mine shut down, the owners told the miners they could take haul their shacks off the mountain and do what they pleased with them. My lot, purchased by one of those miners was prepared for two of those cabins. The old man built a foundation and did a good job of cobbling together those cabins into a small house. My neighbor says she has photos somewhere of a wedding on the lawn in the 50’s.

The good, the bad, and the ugly. Good: I’ve gone through a lot of stuff, made several truckloads of stuff to the dump, given a lot of stuff away that I hope will be appreciated by others, and found some letters and mementos that made me smile. Bad: While pulling everything out in the open to sort, we were pummeled by rain and hail storms the last few days. Some books and things I value and have carried and sheltered for years got wet. I haven’t had the heart to find out to what extent. Also, I gave away some things that I regret; all my artist and architect materials. Gone. Ugly: Encountering images of myself in boxes and piles of papers. Me in broken relationships. Me in faltering careers. Me in a lost and lonely universe. Is it resolution I lack? I have a tendency to avoid unpleasant things. I turn my head and look for distractions instead of the gentle accommodation of inevitable change. As a result, the things I can’t face sit there in a box and wait. I resolve to resolve more. Just to take some time to say to myself, that part of my life is over. It’s okay. It’s okay.

The idea was to take a week to go through everything I own and get rid of as much stuff as possible. It’s taking longer that I thought.