Pssst! A Meditation on Stuff

I‘ve taken the day off from work to sleep and pack up the house. My stress level is through the roof — good thing I watch all those house buying shows on HGTV so I know this is normal because, otherwise, I would fling myself out a first story window and into the mock orange and clematis, where I would lay whimpering, never to be seen again.

It’s not such an unlikely scenario, either, given the enormous black cloud of overwhelm hanging over me. All I seem able to do in the evenings is lay on the divan watching So You Think You Can Dance? and disaster shows on the National Geographic channel. Oh, and of course, HGTV. Meanwhile, my thoughts dance between ARE YOU CRAZY THE ECONOMY’S CRASHING AND YOU”RE TAKING ON THIS KIND OF DEBT?? and oh who cares I sure don’t all I want is to sleep past 5 a.m. one morning just one morning dammit besides there’s actually a dishwasher there and a real fence so high that Moose Boy (aka the lab) will never be able to jump it.

In the meantime, the packing lays languishing. Objects screaming for boxes. Ancient sweaters and scarves longing for banishment to the Goodwill box.

This morning, I broke my mother’s beloved Brown Betty teapot. I found myself thinking it was a sign from her, a kick in the pants that my attachment to all these objects is silly, given everything. My mother had always had that teapot, so no doubt, it was worth some coin, given they’ve become fashionable again.

I threw it in the trash.

And why oh why do I have seven white shirts, three cotton, three that lovely unshiny silk and one a summery eyelet? And what’s the deal with me and apple green? I know it was fashionable a few years ago, but I really look dreadful in it.

Out comes the Goodwill box.

Meanwhile, I’ve carefully packed the giant pink quartz I found when I was 6 or 7. I remember carrying it home, so proud of my find.

I remember how my parents displayed it on the shelves alongside the mysterious old stone club with petrified blood on it, the arrowheads, the petrified wood thingie.

I remember when it disappeared, stolen no doubt by my oldest brother who had an unnatural relationship with rocks.

And I remember when I found it again in the clutches of my collector sister who’d ensconced it in a plastic bag with a label. I freed it, and it’s now packed away in a box with the rose stones and chunks of micah and a smaller box full of all the seashells my mother collected, ready to travel to its new home.

The gorgeous Dior pants that I haven’t worn in 8 years, however, are getting chunked forever. I wonder what I did with that suit, too? Guess it already got tossed.

The good news in all of this is that I found the top of my garbage can. It got blown away a few weeks ago in one of our tornadoes and was revealed last night by the brush hogging. This means I can once again put things in the trash days before The Trash Dude shows up without worrying that packs of dogs or coyotes or possums or raccoons or whatever will rip into the bags scattering lord knows what everywhere.

I need bigger boxes, though. But I suppose I should fill the smaller ones I have first.