I am expecting to soon leave the house Michael and I bought in 2000, the house that I have lived in with our three now fledgling children since his death nine years ago. It's time to purge.
So, I've been opening box after box of stuff that Michael collected throughout his life, up until we moved to this house. Boxes that were stashed on a shelf and unopened for two decades. Much of it I am throwing away - what do I need with clippings of restaurant reviews or recipes, menus he stole from restaurants he enjoyed, photography magazines, letters from his girlfriends before me (though some these I have read), and thousands of photographs of people even he himself might not remember?
This was one of the first treasures I found last night, tucked in a box filled otherwise with newspaper clippings about restaurants and recipes. I am amazed I found it because I was pulling stuff out of that box by the handful and putting it straight into recycling. It's not first edition, which would have been worth an awful lot, but close, and in decent condition.
Finding this made me slow down with my purge of presumably useless stuff. What else might I find?
For one, I found this notebook of poems I wrote in my 20's, also placed long ago among random newspaper clippings. I see by the note in the bottom left hand corner that I had been up pretty late writing. I'm touched that Michael wanted to keep this notebook.
One little poem, written on a torn scrap of an envelope, was tucked into the notebook. I wrote it back in the day when my e's looked like backward 3's.
I still like this poem. The rest of the poems, meh.
On to another box, this one filled with newspaper wrapped breakables. Inside there were a lot of souvenirs from vacations, sculptures the kids had made in school, and this pretty rabbit, of which I have no recollection.
Inside the rabbit are all my pregnancy tests. I was forever pregnant, lucky in some ways and very very unlucky in others.
The most important find was in this beautiful stone vessel with inlaid design. It contained mostly crystals, and a tarnished but intricate silver chain. My husband loved silver chains, he loved to give silver chains as gifts, and this was likely one he had given to me.
I was very happy to find this little pot because the crystals were once important to me, and I have often wondered where they had all gone. I've had a very rough numbers of years lately, somewhere around twenty come to think of it. There is a nice chunk of rose crystal in there, and it took me straight to my mother. I had the insightful thought that maybe I am struggling so much because I am not letting enough spirit in.
But I was shocked when I rummaged through the vessel and found, buried beneath the crystals...
...Michael's wedding ring.
My mother, my husband, my marriage and myself, languishing in boxes that might have easily been thrown to the curb unopened, and that ring would have been buried under my crystals for far longer than today.
Are these good finds? I've unburied an awful lot of treasures, if treasures they be, and I am making hard like @riverflows today steadying my breath and earthing so that I am not crushed with grief.
So if anyone ever asks me, I'm going to have to say that wombling is a big bummer.
This is an entry to @riverflows challenge, the deadline for which is Christmas so I'm early on this one: https://steempeak.com/palnet/@riverflows/treasure-finds-win-50-steem
That Ace of Wands I got on #tarottuesday via @traciyork is starting to make a whole lot of sense.
A beautiful, moving post. It took courage to share this. Comments seem hollow, but I felt I should say something.
Thank you for doing so. Your comment gives me a good feeling.
Oh, this is both a beautiful and tragic #treasurefinds. My heart was breaking even before you got to the rings! The little scraps of memories of your husband and you, your life. You write about this so beautifully. How dear to us are the ones we have lost, and how painful it can be to remember them, walking a sharp line of love and grief. Thankyou for sharing... the first one! 🧡🧡🧡
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You said it, @riverflows, so I'll echo it. And add that you must not throw out the scraps, the keepsakes. I'd insist you donate them to a museum, a curator, a collector, but who is saving and preserving these mementos of last-century life (movie reviews, restaurant menus -think how historic the 50-cent cup of tea is now, the 2-dollar Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's!), the handwritten verses on envelopes. It's priceless. A clean house is a sign of ... maybe not a dull woman, but one who almost tossed treasures with detritus. Or something like that.
I cannot imagine the loss of Michael so early in your married years. The missed anniversaries. The travails you survive without him at your side. Without that extra pair of hands to assist.
I'm glad you're writing Steemit posts. Word count doesn't matter. You're capturing so much in so few words, who needs book or story length?
Oooh, I must steal (echo, ditto) these too: ! 🧡🧡🧡
I feel your grief. It is supportive. Thank you for sharing so openly, it is healing and makes all us women, whatever makes our heart break and weep upon occasion stronger in our belief love is all there is. The rest is but a temporary illusion.
I know how upsetting the memories can be, my dear @owasco, when they come rushing back.
How sweet Michael kept your notebook with the lovely poems and you found other treasures.
Best of luck in the challenge.
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Those are fantastic finds. I find when I clean out an old box, or drawer, or whatever that I exclaim "Oh yeah! That!" quite a bit, but never to the extent of finding something as amazingly dear as an old wedding ring. Providence was looking over your shoulder!
You should create a #treasurefinds post yourself!! 🧡
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Yes, I think I will! Definitely the next time I actually find a treasure1
You know, I think the more you are attentive to the world around you, the more treasures just pop out at you!
I did not expect to write a post for the treasure contest. And here it is. May you be as amazed as I was.
Oh. Wow.
Thanks for sharing that. It couldn't have been easy to share something that personal and magical.
It did take me a long time to hit the publish button, yes. And I put very few tags to reduce the exposure. Thanks for recognizing that.
The most personal of my posts seem to make the biggest splashes, validations.
I love this place.
Ohhh! How sweet and tragic, all in the same breath. To come upon these things is like a scrapbook of your life, one where pieces fit to make your puzzle whole and the thoughts are the same as mine.
Keep or toss. Keep or toss.
To keep means you won't let go of some things and to toss means you didn't think enough to keep it. Life is so unfair.
Keep what moves you and give the rest away. Your heart won't lie to you.
Good luck! !tip
Here is my criteria for keeping something: if I can't help but caress an object for a moment, it stays.
Thank you again and again!
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The rediscoveries we find when we're thinking of throwing things out, can really give us reasons to both smile and shed tears, in the span of a few hours. A real roller coaster ride! While some may sadden you now, your rediscovering them will bring happiness to you in the long run. :)
I will soon be doing this also, when we start to move into the addition. I expect to find all kinds of things I'd forgotten about. Loved this post!
Thank you! I warn you, you will be tempted to just throw an entire box out, and some of them once opened contain nothing you even remember or care about today. But others have things that stop your breath.
It's not easy, and it takes A VERY LONG TIME. Every night I pull a box out (there were a lot of boxes! The photographs were the worst!), set it next to the couch, and go through it while watching some TV show. For this box I was watching Madame Secretary, which I pretty much hate because it's propaganda, so I could concentrate on the stuff instead.
And maybe you will write a post for @riverflows treasure contest. I hope you keep that in mind. Finding treasures you've had in your possession all along. I like that.
Oh @owasco - how profound, beautiful, soul destroying and poignant.... the treasures and the debris of a love, a life. My heart goes out to you.
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You're a better woman than I am. I hoard. Paper clutter all over my house, on every flat surface, not just in drawers or shoeboxes in the closet. Why keep it? You say, wisely, what do I need with clippings of restaurant reviews or recipes, menus he stole from restaurants he enjoyed, photography magazines, letters from his girlfriends before me, and photographs of people nobody recognizes or remembers, but donate to a local college for art majors to incorporate into collages and historical artwork... I don't know... there has to be a home for so many things. I have landfill phobia. The stuff we throw away: it pains me to contemplate, to see. And so I hoard. And someday it'll all get torched because I didn't sift and sort it all myself. Ok, I just now snapped what's to my right, on the countertop: Father's Day card, birthday card, bills, newspaper clippings, a calendar, and mail that isn't really "junk" but I fail to file it somewhere:
You are stronger and braver than most! And you could teach me so much about what to dispose of, what to keep, and how to keep track of what I keep... oh, I have books on how to do that. I just keep putting them out of my mind.
Keeping the letters, envelopes, cards, newspaper clippings
is not really keeping the people associated with them closer to us, is it?
I need to internalize that and start clearing the clutter (er, deadwood! Door #3 from Tuesday Tarot!).
I started with throwing away, or putting it aside for donation, one thing a day. It could be as small as a single pencil, but one thing a day made its way into the garbage or the donation pile.
I donated everything that could still be used, and I am still doing that. The Veterans of America pick up guys know me by name now, and I know theirs.
I hope to sell anything of value, but that is a whole other ball game that I am reticent to step up to the plate for.
Just one thing a day. Try it. Of course it's usually much more than one thing that gets tossed, somedays whole drawers would be culled. My special technique. I'll write a book about that, to go with all the other books that have been written about that, only my book will have one sentence in it.
While we're sharing (I hate that word "share" so you didn't hear it here) I talk a good game, but here is a shot of my "desk" today:
on which we can see cat toys, a sweater I started more than twenty years ago, and a yo-yo, among other things
I'm often terrible at match-making, not just in the romance department, but in trying to unite "kindred spirits" - I'll read one author, think "You've got to read this other author; we all have so many passions in common!" - only to find the other authors totally ignoring each other, not into each other, and not into me either. ;) But... today I thought you'd enjoy these Steemians I just discovered (I've resteemed some of their stuff this morning):
@agmoore • 54 minutes ago
@abigail-dantes has another humdinger of a post out today. I think you'd enjoy it: https://steemit.com/psychology/@abigail-dantes/metacognition-neuroplasticity-and-pr-s-incredible-brain
Why thank you!
I think agmoore participates in mizu no oto but I have yet to read anything else of his.
abigail-dantes does indeed float my boat. Holy cow! major find. Thanks.
Later!!! I'm in no mood for another story!!! Enough of this for today!!!!!
xo
You're welcome... and, sorry you seem to have gotten an overload from me today.
Tomorrow is another day!
Not from you! Never from you!
phew
Heaven forbid I should burden anyone with reminders of life's burdens--there just aren't enough cat videos (or bleating goats on you tube!) to counteract the tragedies and vicissitudes of life. But I leave you with goats, all the same:
Now, @goat-girlz, feel free to add your own to the collection!
Priceless!!!
That photo totally makes my day!!!
And the one-thing-each-day motto. It's similar to advice to writers. Write just a few words, and see how it goes. Chances are you'll keep writing after the Five Minute Freewrite timer went off, because the prompt unlocked something.
Throw one thing away, and you might throw out a whole drawer full of things with it.
It's always mathematical, isn't it?
Oh, and me too: I hate that word "share" so you didn't hear it here. LOL!
these are all such beautiful treasures, that represent so many parts of your life journey, thank you for sharing them with us xx
I've done that before too, and long afterwards I regretted it