2020. The year of elastic. Elastic waists on pajama and yoga pants. Elastic time. What month is it? I have no idea. Time stretched and compressed like a rubber band. Did I ever get fully dressed? Who knows?
Here’s what I do remember:
And then, there was the basement. If not then, when?
There are three 4-foot shelf sections. One section holds things that Dave and I have accumulated – bike and kayak accessories, Christmas items, unused rugs, a huge electric frying pan. The other 2 were the great unknown. I came up with the idea that I would go through a box a week. Nothing huge, not a lot of pressure. Just start.
Being 15 years removed from bringing those boxes here meant that a lot of the emotion that was held inside them had dissipated. Like gas. Like germs that floated away on the breeze of being more than 6 feet away from someone. I could do this, now.
There was an entire 4-foot shelf section of things that belonged to my grandparents, my parents or childhood me that I managed to label and clear out a lot of. Photo albums – if they were vacation memories and I didn’t know the people in them, gone. My grandfather’s manual typewriter – still there but probably leaving soon. Looking for a collector. Old jewelry that wasn’t worth anything - out. Household items I would never use – gone.
My own boxes from my parent’s house – childhood toys from the attic. An entire suitcase of Barbie dolls and clothes. Toy dishes. I’m still looking for a collector who might want all or some of these. Today, in 2025, I’m seriously considering opening an Etsy account to get it all sold.
What I succeeded in doing most was clearing out the items that weren’t valuable, or that didn’t mean anything to me. And then, I labeled boxes a lot more carefully. Mostly, I ended up creating a to-do list. It’s still waiting to be done.
By the end of 2022, it was all labeled and condensed. It felt good to at least know what was in every box. I got it down to something manageable.
The third shelf unit, the one with my daughter Anne’s boxes, remained untouched.
Here’s what I do remember:
- I walked the boundary lines (and every passable inch) of our 5 acres of property until I understood it.
- I foraged more mushrooms than we could eat and left them in paper bags on my neighbor’s front steps.
- Ditto baking. I baked way too much and gave away most of it.
And then, there was the basement. If not then, when?
There are three 4-foot shelf sections. One section holds things that Dave and I have accumulated – bike and kayak accessories, Christmas items, unused rugs, a huge electric frying pan. The other 2 were the great unknown. I came up with the idea that I would go through a box a week. Nothing huge, not a lot of pressure. Just start.
Being 15 years removed from bringing those boxes here meant that a lot of the emotion that was held inside them had dissipated. Like gas. Like germs that floated away on the breeze of being more than 6 feet away from someone. I could do this, now.
There was an entire 4-foot shelf section of things that belonged to my grandparents, my parents or childhood me that I managed to label and clear out a lot of. Photo albums – if they were vacation memories and I didn’t know the people in them, gone. My grandfather’s manual typewriter – still there but probably leaving soon. Looking for a collector. Old jewelry that wasn’t worth anything - out. Household items I would never use – gone.
My own boxes from my parent’s house – childhood toys from the attic. An entire suitcase of Barbie dolls and clothes. Toy dishes. I’m still looking for a collector who might want all or some of these. Today, in 2025, I’m seriously considering opening an Etsy account to get it all sold.
What I succeeded in doing most was clearing out the items that weren’t valuable, or that didn’t mean anything to me. And then, I labeled boxes a lot more carefully. Mostly, I ended up creating a to-do list. It’s still waiting to be done.
- Get the slides and movies and VCR movies converted to cloud storage. (When that gets accomplished, I clear up 2 shelves worth of space.)
- Donate some of my grandfather’s slides (namely, the photos he took of the construction of the NY State Thruway in Rockland County) to a historical society.
- Find someone on my grandfather’s side of the family who wants the big family bible.
- Figure out what to do with all the framed photos. (See conversion to cloud storage.)
- Sell the toys.
By the end of 2022, it was all labeled and condensed. It felt good to at least know what was in every box. I got it down to something manageable.
The third shelf unit, the one with my daughter Anne’s boxes, remained untouched.
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