I have started cleaning out the attic and storage spaces of the house. I have been cleaning like a woman possessed, changing things, throwing out things, getting rid of things. I want to pare down my existence and get it all into just one box. To get rid of all my material things, all my connections to the past, and only be connected to right now, to this moment, to what happens next.
It helps that I have two fireplaces in the house. They have been going non-stop and I have been burning anything that is fit to burn. This, of course, causes problems in the amount of ashes left behind and necessitates me having to clean out the ashes each morning, as it is about six inches thick at the end of each session.
It’s like a giant rummage sale. “It’s Helen’s past! Everything must go!” I don’t know why I am doing it, perhaps I am preparing myself, perhaps I am just purging, perhaps it is something I should have done ages ago.
I remember just before I moved to Sweden I got rid of almost everything. When I moved to Sweden I had a grand total of 15 boxes and those four pieces of furniture. An entire life lived in one small truckload of goods. I gave away everything else-hundreds of books, a house full of furniture. I don’t regret giving any of it away, and I haven’t missed it. Ironically, one of the greatest lessons I have learned thus far in life is that possessions are nothing, really. This is not to say I’m not sentimental, for I am. Deeply. I have the quilt my grandmother stitched for me just before her arthritis got too bad to hold a needle. A yellow plastic bath toy that was a gift from my grandfather. Gifts from people that I have loved.
Maybe I am doing it all again, only in a more destructive way. This morning I threw out almost half my CD collection , all of my old journals, and some videos (all of my DVD colletion will kept and not minimized). I went through two boxes of papers that I had and managed to burn one and a half of them. My books are the next to go, although I will just take them to the library in Stockholm and hope they bring someone some peaceful reading. Only a handful of the books will stay with me-“Calvin and Hobbs”, “Griffin and Sabine”, “Flags of Our Fathers”, “The Lovely Bones” and a few others that touched me deeply.
I am determined to be ruthless. Anything related to my ex-husband (other than our divorce decree) went up in a whoosh of fire about two hours ago. Anything that had to do with university, other than my diploma and a letter from Sallie Mae saying I was all paid up also joined the fray. Old car payment books, bank statements, little incidentals having to do with past jobs…they all went.
Love letters stayed. They got boxed up and boxed up again. I will keep them, even if I don’t read them just now. It’s nice to know that I was loved like that at one time, and so love letters will stay, if only as a memory of how young I was once, and how naïve.
And then I got to my box of photos. Endless photos of endless times in my life. Me with Julia Roberts red hair. Me with the Gwenyth Paltrow “Sliding Doors” short haircut. Me with hair down to the middle of my back. Puppies that grew into dogs, Christmases that were celebrated years ago, and pictures of my first house, a beautiful little number in Dallas. My mom. My sister. Some of the parade of morons that were the men in my life at one time. Snow, sun, sea, sand. All of it in there.
And as I reached my hand into the box to start chucking photos into the flames, I pulled out two photos. One was of my grandfather, sitting in his favorite armchair, laughing. His army issue glasses were falling down the bridge of his nose and the remote control teetered dangerously on the armrest. His cheeks were red and at his feet was his favorite dog, a cattle dog named Babe.
The second one was a picture of Kim, my beautiful Kim, sitting naked in front of a table. The slope of his back was graceful, a burn scar marring the upper left shoulder, the skin moving to lean ribs and a softly sculpted stomach. His legs were crossed, but a ridge of black hair ran down his chest, fanning out just above his pubic bone to the part the camera did not catch. I remember running my hands up and down that back as he sat up in bed. I remember the feel of his stomach pressed against my back at night as we slept.
My God, he was so beautiful.
I put the two pictures back into the box, added my old love letters, and closed the lid. I may be on a quest to rid my heart of my memories, but I cannot rid my mind of these images. The craziness that I am going through right now would lead to a desolation someday, as I realized that I would not have pictures of these parts of my life, the good and the bad, the heaven and the hell.
I think about all the times I have been to antique stores and looked through boxes of old photos. It amazes me that the photos have come to rest there, in a box marked “10 for $1.00!” These pictures are lives. They are unmarked, unclaimed, resting silently for a stranger like me to flip through them and witness their lives, their intimate moments which I haven’t been invited to. Women holding babies up to the camera. Graduations. Photos of Ellis Island. A little girl holding a pineapple up to the camera on holiday. Kids tobogganing in a white and gray blur of motion.
The clean and purge will continue, but I feel proud of myself that I have not lost my pictures. No matter where I go in life, I want that stupid box to come with me, even if I never open it again. It’s proof that a life was lived with some purpose, that someday even if my pictures wind up in some antique store it is proof enough that I was here. And someday if you are in an antique store and find one of two people looking madly in love, and flip it over and see on the back “Kim and I, September 1995”, then go ahead and buy that one. Perhaps it’s me.
And if that picture is bought by someone, perhaps he and I will live on after all.
-H.
PS-Kim and I can be found here, in case anyone has some reading time and wants a good cry.
PPS-Check out Jim's "The Best Of Me" Symphony here.
Posted by Everydaystranger at December 15, 2003 08:03 AM | TrackBackGenius is of no country.
Posted by: Sadowsky Jacob at January 22, 2004 07:53 AMyou go! its a great feeling to just get rid of things. you burn them too! i just got done cleaning out also....it all went. i dont have a fire place but a burn barrel. i burnt everything.....clothing, a pair of my old converse chucks, school papers it all went. what a great feeling to put a match to it. my closet is clean, everything is in order snd i can finally see the floor of my closet. (i got a mew pair of converse chucks for xmas from my boyfriend)
Posted by: theresa at January 2, 2004 04:07 AM{{{Helen}}} I've only ever done a purge like this once... and had to run out to the dumpster the next day and rescue things! LOL Not *everything* -- but there I was in the alley, surrounded by the opened trash bags, sorting sorting sorting....
Posted by: jean at December 16, 2003 08:44 AMThe part where you go into the pictures is beautiful. I have these, too. Segregated almost - dead people and alive.
My husband likes to go to estate sales to find books to add to our library. Often he finds what you have found but in variation. Picture frames on sale in these houses. Still in their original locations, pictures intact.
I'm incredibly sentimental and have great trouble throwing anything away. I wrote about my last purge after a friend had to move across Canada with only what he could fit in his car. My cats and spouse would fill a car, so I just can't imagine trying to do that. I have a house full of things and typically find that comforting because of all that I can rediscover.
I also have letters from a dead friend I'll likely never read again but can't bring myself to throw away. When my father died, it took us a whole day to get stuff down from the attic. In the end, it was several truckloads full, mostly of junk. Sometimes we just keep things. Nothing wrong with it, so leave it be.
hln
Posted by: hln at December 16, 2003 02:05 AMOr we're both, Helen? That's good though. Company's nice when you're a little bit crazy. Hehe
Posted by: Jim at December 15, 2003 07:14 PMH,
And I thought I was all cried out after finishing "Tuesdays with Morrie" last night. The SilverBox took it up a notch.
The events of our lives, both good and bad, have made us who we are. Despite the pain of the last few years of my life I realize that given the chance to change my past I would let it stand. We often don't know who we really are until we are tested. Hopefully each of us manages to find a way through those tests without letting them destroy us.
I think this current purge is rather expected. I'm on the verge of one myself. Hold on to what's truly precious - chuck the rest! It would be a shame to let our accumulated pasts weigh us down to the point where we're no longer agile enough to seize the future when it comes whizzing past!
Take care little flame.
PC
Posted by: Paul USA at December 15, 2003 06:30 PMThe symbolism of burning the past looms quite large. As someone who holds onto little from the past,(speaking of physical objects) I can see the appeal. Yet, is it bravery to throw away the past? One might say that it is, but we can never throw away the past. We say we do because we rid ourselves of things that produce memories, but the memories themselves are never lost and wander back, intrusive, at the most awkward times.
We bury, burn, distance ourselves, only to find that at some point, the abyss stares back at us, our past viewed from a precipice. We soldier onward because for those of us who dare throw away the physical attachments, we survive because we know what others don't. We have lost, by our own hand, by dismissing the past, and they will have to face it one day as well.
Posted by: Jay at December 15, 2003 06:25 PMI have to say that for a girl who grew up in Dallas (and I know from experience), throwing away any material possessions is a gutsy move! And one I've never had the courage to do. Maybe one day.....
Posted by: Jennifer at December 15, 2003 04:28 PMI am only ever able to purge things/myself like this when I need to move (otherwise I don't have the strength to do it), but then I am equally ruthless. Except for two things: I don't think I could throw away photos or books.
Seeing as skimming over the contents of the silver box has left me near speechless, and I couldn't add anything meaningful to what the others have written here before me anyway, I'll just shut up now.
Posted by: Gudy at December 15, 2003 03:55 PMThe Silver Box is one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read... all the more so because it is so real. Thank you very much for sharing your life like that - I believe that the world would be a better place if everyone did the same. I'm gonna go cry now ;-)
Laura and Nisi-thanks for the support, it's nice to know that you're out there.
Jim-glad someone else goes through the same thing as I do. So I am either not alone, or we're both just a little bit crazy.
Pylorns-bang on, man. You got it exactly right. Well said.
Posted by: Helen at December 15, 2003 02:41 PMSometimes it takes life changing events for someone who grows up in a materialistic world, to realize that, things, items, clothing, junk, is just that, junk. All that really matters is that you are alive. If someone puts a gun to your head, does any of that junk matter? No. Society tells us that it matters, but nothing matters except love and life.
Posted by: pylorns at December 15, 2003 02:28 PMI think cleaning out the attic is like clearing out your mind, very healthy i am sure. I wish I had the strength to do that. This post and the links it holds were amazing. Thankyou for this.
Posted by: nisi at December 15, 2003 01:25 PMI purge my things when they get to a critical mass. What is that threshold exactly? No way to know. There are a lot of factors that establish it - various comfort levels with work, home, relationship, general happiness, even how the Bills are playing is a factor.
Once the threshold is passed I am a machine of destruction. Each item is ruthlessly examined and either saved as a treasure or immediately discarded.
I'm always in the same mood when I do this. A sort of robotic, driven, semi-hyper state. But nearly emotionless at the same time. No matter what set me into the anti-nesting mode once I'm there I am calm, collected, and absolutely ruthless in my decisions of what to discard.
I've spent a freaking half hour on this comment and I can't finish the damned thing. Just won't go down at all.
Helen, just know that if I saw that picture I'd sure as hell buy it and I'm pretty sure it would survive my anti-nesting purges.
So beautifully written.
So brave of you to rid yourself of so many possessions and of so much of the past in doing so.
You're so obiviously at a huge transition point in your life and based at how reflective you've been in the past two posts you seem to be handling it well.
The light will find you. Have faith in that.
Posted by: Laura at December 15, 2003 08:58 AM