“Ma, this room is bursting at the seams,” said my daughter Debbie when she
came into the den.
This was in response to my call for help, “SOS! I’m drowning… in
papers!”
My room had to accommodate all the things that came with me from a
one family house that had an attic and a basement; including a computer,
printer, related instruction manuals, folders with insurance documents,
Medicare notices, etc. Plus the closet full of assorted stuff years in the
making.
‘Downsizing’ has it’s… well …downside.
Her idea was to dispose of the things in the closet that I no longer needed
thereby making room for the things that were not in the closet but should
be, rather than strewn on tables and stacked on the floor. It wasn’t going to
be easy for me, she had that gleam in her eyes and I knew what it meant,
but I was desperate.
“Before we start on the closet,” she said, “why don’t we tackle the
bookshelf?”
“What do you mean… ‘tackle’? I asked.
“Y’know, organize it, discard some books...it looks messy.”
“My books are off limits,” I said.. “and I like the way it looks.”
True, the books were placed every which way, up, down, and sideways,
but each shelf had it’s own subject; American History on the top shelf,
poetry under it, then novels, and on the bottom shelf were the books with
miscellaneous subjects; ‘The Backyard Birds of North America’, ‘One Pot
Meals’, ‘Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life’.
“My books are off limits” I said again.
After a long stare, she raised her hand,“ No prob.”
The first thing we took out of the closet was the stacks of travel magazines.
I didn’t read them any more, and my travel journals and slides had their
own special cabinet. So we took the magazines, tied them up and
set them aside for the recycling bin. It was a ‘good thing’, not only for the
paper, because I dearly love trees, but maybe someone seeing them might
take them home. Armchair travel ( at a certain age) is a close second to
the real thing, isn’t it?
Maps. Two boxes full. On every trip I picked up maps of the country, city,
state, or a street map. I carried one in Athens, and we followed the streets to
get us to the uphill road to the Parthenon. In Amsterdam the street map
guided us all around the canals of the city. With a twinge of nostalgia I tied
them all up too.
A shoebox of old bills, LIPA, VERIZON, CABLEVISION, we tore them
up, into the garbage bag they went.
Then in the corner of the closet Debbie took out a plastic sandwich bag and
tossed it into the wastebasket.
“Wait”, I retrieved the baggie.
“What? What is it?” she asked.
“Pieces of wood” I said, trying not to sound as though I were talking to a
Pre-K class.
“I know they’re pieces of wood,” she sounded as though she were talking to
seniors plus in a retirement home, “but why do you want them?”
I studied the bag of the 2 inch squares of wood, turning it around in my
hand, remembering when I was having my kitchen redone; the old cabinets
and counter tops were being pulled out and the new ones installed;
there were things that the workers discarded. I took the wood pieces, but I
don’t recall the reason why. What craft project would I use them for?
“ It isn’t that I want them,” I explained, “it’s just that I might need them.”
“For what!!?
I recognized the tone of impatience in her voice. It was hunger.“ Let’s go
have lunch, I made a Caesar Salad.”
“O.K. and then we’ll finish here. We’re on a roll! “So,” she asked, on our
way into the kitchen “why do you want…uh, need those pieces of wood?”
I have three children, all grown, with families of their own. And all of them
with good minds, good values and no shortage of self confidence. And
stubbornness. They got that trait from me, I thought, and if I want to keep
those pieces of wood, I will!
We had a nice lunch, both of us carefully avoiding the sensitive subject at
hand; what to keep, what to get rid of, and how to get Mom more
organized.
Next, we almost pitted wills over the stacks of old newspapers, some
yellowed with age.
“And you’re saving these because…?” she asked, with a look of concern.
“Hmm, not sure.” I took some at random, why did I keep them? An article
that interested me, a great movie review, election results of past years? ( I
am a political junkie).
“Ma,” she said speaking slowly for emphasis, “we live in the age of
information, we can access all the news we want without these dusty old
newspapers. It’s all there on the internet! I’ll show you how!”
She was so adamant, so sure of herself , my reluctance just melted away. We
tied up the papers and put them near the front door.
Next in the closet were two large boxes of records and albums, the old 78’s,
45’s and 33’s. True, I no longer had a victorola, (is that word still used?) but
I could buy one. “When was the last time you listened to these?” she asked.
Not for years, I thought, "What if I want to… someday…?”my voice trailed off.
“You can! “ she said with the superior air of her generation (and all the
generations younger than mine, including my 12 year old grand-daughter).
“You know all this music is on CD’s now, “she pointed to my shelf of them,
“so you don’t need all these big bulky albums. And did you know you can
even hear them on YOU TUBE?”
I didn’t know.
She looked thru the 78’S. “Wow! These are the original recordings, Nat
King Cole on his Capital label, Perry Como on RCA Victor. COOL!”
Sure, I knew they were ‘cool’. But more than that, as I picked up one after
the other, a flood of memories swept over me; Patti Page, Johnny Mathis,
singing songs where every word had meaning to a teenager…of teenage
love and heartbreak.
“Ma, you should keep these. This is your music, from when you were
uh…young.”
“ ‘Er‘, you mean. young ‘er.’ Hmm, give me a second.” That was all the
time I needed to take the pulse of my emotions; No, not feeling sentimental.
“They can go” I said… but I can’t throw them away!”
She didn’t answer me, didn’t even look up; she was busy on her cell phone,
not talking, texting. Must be important, I thought, we’re right in the middle
of our cleanup. I watched as her thumbs bounced over the tiny keyboard.
Are they all going to get arthritis of their thumbs someday? When she was
done, the funny little sound came from her phone. She read it and beamed,
“That was Matt . I told him about your records, he said he’d love to have
them. We have plenty of room now.”
Upsizing has it upside!
My son in-law, Matt, is a history buff of pop music, and a professional
musician himself.
“ AND you can listen to them at our house any time you want!”
“SOLD!” It was the perfect win-win solution. We carried the 2 cartons to
the front door.
But when we took out the next large box she knew, being a Mother herself,
that all the old Mother’s Day and Birthday cards from her and her siblings
were sacrosanct. So too were cards from my grandchildren, from the ages
of four years old and up with their own drawings (scribblings) in watercolor
and crayons. Did I detect in some a budding Jackson Pollack, another
Grandma Moses and one with a hint of a Marc Chagall in his future? Or
was this just a grandparent's view as are all grandparent’s that think that
their grand-kids are just brilliant! That carton went back into the closet.
The last things were my photo albums. She chuckled as she looked at
pictures of herself with her brother and sister at Rockaway Beach.
"Here’s one with Dad,” she said. “I remember that day, we were building a
sand castle, almost finished with it when a big wave came and swallowed it
all up and we had to start over again. Ma, I’ll take these albums, we’ll scan
these snapshots onto a CD, then we can all see them on our computers.”
“Really?” I was impressed. But I was also suspicious. What were her real
motives, to discard the big bulky albums and replace them with some discs
that take up less room in my closet? Uh, uh, I thought, I can throw my
travel magazines, my maps, and my newspapers. You can have my 78’s and
45’s and 33’s, but you may not have my soul nor my pictures of you as a
small child, of your brother and your sister… of us a long time ago, when
life was simpler and I, in my innocence, thought that only good things lay
ahead.
She read my mind. “Ma, chill. We’re just scanning the snapshots, I’ll bring
them all back!”
I breathed.
So the day ended on a high note. We carried the photo albums and the
cartons of records out to her car, took the magazines, newspapers and maps
out to the recycling bin. Finally, we organized the folder files and important papers
that were strewn all around and put them into the closet. The room no longer looked
like a Nor’easter had blown through my open window.
She put up her hand for a high five. I hugged her instead. “Thanks honey,… maybe
we can ‘tackle’ my bedroom closet next time.”
Her eyes lit up, that was a challenge she would love!
But as we left the room I caught her looking longingly at the bookshelf.
“My books are off limits,” I droned.
And the sandwich bag of wood? Back into the closet it went, I know I can
use it someday for something.
THE END
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