Autumn brings a waft of chilly air that sends people to their attics for sweaters. It can snowball into reorganizing the boxes of ornaments and school papers that seem to multiply of their own devices. One friend told me she has been purging the contents of her basement for weeks. It is a grueling task, something she has to strong arm herself
into doing day after tedious day.
I have heard others say their system is to gather up the clutter in a paper bag and stuff it in a closet. If a year goes by and they have not gone hunting through it, it gets tossed. No questions asked. It seems brutal to me, a person who sweats over scraps of fabric big enough for a four year old to sew a bean bag, because there will be children here tomorrow.
Taking stock of our belongings is a prudent use of our energy.
Recently I was tempted to buy fresh scissors for sewing class, but thought better of it. I pawed through the basket of sharp things in my sewing room and at the bottom were five more pairs of the exact kind I almost purchased. I had just stopped paying attention to what i already had.
When John compiled the collection of our music recently it was as if I found a room full of old friends. Even I, the composer, cannot keep all of them in my peripheral vision at
once. He started playing some of the lesser known ones on the piano, and I sang along. It felt wonderful. I knew the words, and our voices slipped into harmony. How had I let these sweet memories get away?
Many of us who live in homes big enough to have closets and basements have more belongings than we can hold in our arms at once. Out of sight, they can fall out of mind as well.
Another birthday gift was an enlargement of a picture of
our whole family at the beach this summer. Seeing it is like opening up a door to that ocean breeze. There is not even any time lost rebooting. Look again, feel again.
Most relationships that have been sparking for longer than a crush in third period algebra have a trail of tangible evidence. Photographs, letters, rock shaped hearts, lyrics, that frilly skirt you wore to a high school dance are all doors to where we have been and how we felt when we were there.
The tragedy is that we forget where the knob is.
I invite you to go rummaging. Play the tunes on your stereo. Open the albums splitting with photographs of a trip to the Grand Canyon. Look through your jewelry box for the earrings he bought you at the pier. Walk the trail that you strolled together back when it felt brazen to hold hands. Gaze into the eyes that you memorized long ago but have forgotten to explore.
It makes sense to
pay attention to what you already have.
