When the Past Becomes Part of the Present

I spent two afternoons this weekend cleaning, purging and organizing my garage and I ended up with two boxes of stuff to take to Goodwill, a large bag and cardboard to take to recycling and other stuff to throw out. It doesn’t sound like much but I was proud of myself. It was messy out there in the land of e-Bay shipping and empty boxes. One of those boxes I took to Goodwill contained 20-25 books about the Vietnam War and, yes, I’d read every one of them back in days when I was trying to understand what our soldiers went through over there. Things happened in that phase of my life that to this day I have never talked or written about, but I am at peace with letting those secrets stay buried. Letting go of that box was an acknowledgement that old and deep wounds have finally healed. However, it wasn’t lost on me that while I was ceremonially letting go of another piece of my past, Mr. Trump was tweeting: “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents.” The Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief doesn’t have a clue about why and for how long women keep secrets about ‘he said/she said’ situations---even when (and maybe especially because) they thought their lives were in danger. 

Another box that I sorted and mostly threw out were photographs that were my husband’s---of his friends before we met and from GM, of his collections and heavy equipment and a mishmash of landscapes. He took a lot of photos and I only kept five-six including one of his favorite childhood cow (above). I hate the fact that photographs can’t go in paper recycling bins, so I ended up filling a 13 gallon kitchen trash bag up so they didn’t have to get mixed in with the nasty stuff that ends up in the garbage collection truck. Ya, I know I’m fooling myself because that bag of photos probably got busted before the truck got to the end of the block. If I had a fireplace, I would have burned them and found out afterward that there’s some kind of toxic fumes released by doing so. Oops. And did you know, you can’t put shredded paper in with your paper recycling? The pieces are too small for their machines to process. And while I’m sharing what I learned recently, you can’t put photo slides, CDs or floppy disks in recycling bins either unless they are specially designated bins for video equipment. 

Something else I kept from that box of photos, what I still can’t get rid of, was my husband’s report cards from kindergarten through high school. Silly, I know, but the envelope doesn’t take up much room and I find the teacher remarks both sweet and funny because they show that Don’s core personality hadn’t changed since he was a little boy until he died. “Don is friendly boy.” Don has good manners.” “Don talks too much in class.” “Don is bright.” “Don constantly needs to be reminded to remove his hat when he comes inside.” Can you imagine a teacher today making a notation on a report card that as parents you need to work on getting your son to take his hat off when he’s inside buildings? I still haven’t been able to get rid of Don’s favorite hat, either, his Stetson cowboy hat that he wore out West and whenever he was totally happy with his world. Does a widow’s work ever end? Not for overly sentimental types like me. If I had been a Native American Indian in the Old West I would have had a heavy pouch full of pebbles, feathers, hair and other reminders of people or places that I didn’t want to forget. I don’t travel ‘light’ through life. 

I’ve got one more afternoon to spend in the garage before I’ll be satisfied with leaving it behind for the winter. I’ve got cabinets that I want to sort and downsize. One is full of yard and garden stuff, another is full of floral vases and seasonal decorations, another is full of kitchen appliances, etc, and one cabinet contains stuff I've identified as things to sell on e-Bay. I dread sorting the vases most of all. I love flowers. They were a part of my working years for twenty years. Love having the perfect vase for all sorts of flowers from wild violets to sunflowers, from a single flower to a bouquet of several dozen stems. None of the vases have monetary value. So I can’t sell them on e-Bay to soften the loss. But of the 50-60 vases in the cabinet, I’m hoping to pare them down to eight or ten. Wish me luck.

Sometimes the past becomes part of the present like it did this weekend when our ‘esteemed’ president couldn’t resist voicing his nonsense about women keeping secrets. Apparently, if we don’t run our mouths shortly after whatever we claim took place happened, then it doesn’t count. I know my reaction to Mr. Trump's obtuseness was not unusual, though, judging by how many women tweeted their stories with the hashtag “why I didn’t report.” Life is messy. People are complicated. Our president is an ass who ruined my weekend. ©