I may never go shopping again. The generation just younger than my own seems determined to fill all my needs. My children think of everything. Even though I text my grocery list to them, they come up with extras. One younger friend, a true chef if ever there was one, brings special dishes … sourdough bread, fancy desserts, newfangled casseroles. And, just in case I need to be fed mentally, a 1,000-piece picture puzzle, a Van Gogh, no less. I plan to tackle it soon, allowing plenty of time. (I recall my frustration with my first encounter with a Thomas Kinkade puzzle. I’m fairly certain that it took me longer to work the puzzle than it took Kinkade to paint the original.) We shall see how the Van Gogh goes.
Often I find flowers on the carport table which serves as the “swap shop” for incoming and outgoing items. There are usually books, coming and going, and the funny papers which I save for the great-grands. The sanitizer and wipes are there also, and the empty dishes from the latest deliveries of goodies. I’m beginning to bend the sheltering rules a bit, allowing masked visitors to venture inside. I realized if I didn’t do this, I could easily become a hermit, perhaps even a hoarder.
Many of us are doing home repairs and cleaning out closets. They say Goodwill was overrun with donations. The three persons in this household – me, myself, and I – have reached consensus in the need for a reduction in the inventory of the domicile. That’s a fancy way of saying that I’m cleaning house. Instead of a new year’s resolution, I have made a “new normal” resolution. I plan to discard, destroy or pack up for Goodwill, at least one item every day. The decision was made when I realized one day that every time I went into the utility room, I saw something I never use. So one day I threw away something. It felt so good, I did it again the next day (a different something). The room itself long ago lost its identity as the laundry room. It became the scullery, the cloak room, the pantry, and the storage room for everything that didn’t seem to belong anywhere else. I found two cans of asparagus, dated 2017, but probably purchased long before then after attending a Cherokee County Historical Society Christmas gathering where someone had brought a creamed asparagus dish that would melt in your mouth. (I never got around to finding the recipe.) And that little box filled with shoe polish tins and bottles, including white, neutral, and black, had to go. Hadn’t been touched in years.
It all brought to mind a song that Ludlow Porch used to play on his call-in radio show. It was titled, “On the Other Shore.” The writer opined that we would meet all our possessions on the other shore. Such items as “sacks and sacks of earring backs” and “National Geographics from 1974,” and “every tiny plastic high-heel Barbie ever wore.” “We’ll have giant storage units free of charge for evermore, where our tax receipts will all be saved in bags upon the floor,” doesn’t sound too heavenly. I prefer the adage that states that we can’t take it with us, assuming that it didn’t arrive there ahead of us.
A few days in the utility room proved to be the catalyst for a repeat in the kitchen. The fridge yielded mustard and ketchup dated 2018, along with jars of jam and jelly from a long ago time. Cabinets held a jar of honey, purchased for my Man of the House. (He died in 2014.) And there was a collection of spices, never opened, given to me by a grandson-in-law before he married into the family. (Their older daughter is 12 years old.) I just never acquired the art of cooking with spices.
The days ahead are sure to be busy with closets and chests of drawers, and that junk drawer in the kitchen. I’ll be making room for a new generation of items, or, better still, some empty spaces. Son-in-law George, our resident organizer, has rearranged items in their home to accommodate his “Corona Closet” where he stores masks, gloves, sanitizers, and other pandemic articles. I should take lessons from him.
In the meantime, I’ll keep sheltering and staying in touch with the rest of the world. If I don’t turn on the TV or check my cell phone, every day is just another day in paradise. The birds don’t seem to know of any danger. The deer still stand at my fence with no fear. The squirrels and chipmunks stay busy all the daylight hours. The geraniums are blooming, and the hydrangea bushes are already heavy with buds. It’s June, and as the poet, Lowell said, “What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.” My family has birthdays on June 3, a grandson and a great-grandson, followed on the next day by the anniversary of the death of their mother/grandmother, our daughter Mary. We miss her still.
