Come, Take!

 

          Finally, they all left. I was alone in the old house with all our stuff. A good fifty year collection. The air was close.  In the silence I could feel years and years pressing down on my heart.

          My children, and our few surviving friends had all been as kind as kind could be. They brought food.  What else could they do? There was no way to mend the tear. What is rent is rent.
          Picking up my constant companion, my cane, I toured the flotsam of two lives. First the kitchen. There were layered generations of equipment.  Enough to run four kitchens. There was my great grandmother’s iron skillet.  Here was my own mother’s mixer, which I have never used. It went on. Gadgets and gizmos.
          Bedroom, boxes never opened in twenty years. Long forgotten contents. A closet full of his clothing. Better not look just yet. Apparently I had forgotten to throw out clothing I hadn’t worn since the Clinton administration and before.
          A dreadful basement collection. Only God knew what was down there. I have long forgotten.
          A catchall living room. Books in towers. Books in boxes. Books on shelves. The stuff of sewing, four machines, the stuff of knitting and spinning. Painting supplies. A studio sized easel. Canvases. Paper. Endless.
          I made my way back to an empty chair. My cat hopped up on the arm and settled down, looking into my eyes as he sat. Ferguson, the tom cat. I think it was Ferguson who gave me the idea. Why not Ferguson, indeed?
          First I would contact the five children, and through them four grandchildren. I would invite them to come and take whatever they thought would fit into their lives and be used. I wanted the books in particular to be picked over by our children.
          The two sons, prosperous enough on their own, but also sentimental went through the tools, keeping some, leaving others. They brought boxes for books, which was a good thing. The herd was diminished when they left.
          We had three daughters, all within driving distance, none of whom need much at all, but were also interested in historical pieces, and books. One girl took the old skillet, which I held in my hands for a while before I gave it to her. Another daughter, less well off than her sisters, took stacks of baking equipment and the Kitchen Aid. I was also able to give her the Vita Mix. Someone took my mother’s dishes. Thank God. The last daughter took my newest sewing machine happily. That’s alright. Life is more than sewing I tell myself. But I had to be firm with me. She also took a stack of fabric I had not seen in many years. I must have thought that in the apocalypse I would clothe multitudes.
          Ferguson seemed pleased but felt that we must press on.  The house just looked a little messier from the exploring. I forgot my cane and walked from room to room just looking. Domestic archaeology.
          I have an intelligent granddaughter in her twenties who is my cat’s paw in all matters. She and I decided to gather all the clothing in the house into a great pile on the bed.  A great pile it was too. I reserved a sensible wardrobe for myself, putting it back into the now empty closet. She carried the pile out to her car in several loads and drove it away to donate. I watched her out the window driving away. I was not sad. I sat on the bed and bounced a couple of times. Yes.
          The next part was tricky.  I didn’t want to do this stupidly. I was peeling an onion here and did not want to make a mess of it.
          I wanted to access the private public, not the re-sellers. But really, there was only one way to do it.  So, I made a little sign on a board that had been downstairs. It was painted white. I fastened a little upright stick to the back of it. On it I painted in black letters Household goods. Come, Take! The next day after coffee I walked out to the sidewalk and pounded the sign into the very edge of the lawn. My step was light. Then I went back into the house and waited to see what would happen next.
          It was not long. A boy with a girl walked up to the door and knocked. I said, “I am undressing my old house.  Take what you can use. But check with me on the way out.  I will need a few things when the house is clear.”  They took a heavy quilt I had made decades before, kitchen gadgets, dishes, glasses, a 20lb sack of rice and some books about sewing and fabrics.  I showed her all my knitting things, but she was not a knitter.
          Once I set the cane aside it never crossed my mind again.
          Some will say “why not have a sale?” But there is a different mentality to a sale, a grasping energy. That isn’t what I was doing. I didn’t need the small amount of money my old things would bring. I was about a kind of holy divesting of the accretion of years.
          I put the sign out seven times. Each day I met neighbors that I didn’t know.  One wanted the old piano. God bless him.  He wanted to repair and tune it for use.  A piano should be used. Slowly the extra in the kitchen melted away, leaving only what I needed to get by. My heart was easy. I did not grieve my objects. I was pretty sure that it is better for things to be used for their intended use.
          I slept well, Ferguson beside me. I had two blankets and two pillows. Most of the boxes had been emptied. The room even sounded different. Emptier. More spacious.
          On the eighth day I didn’t put the sign out. Anything useful was gone. My granddaughter helped me find some men who would sweep up the detritus and take it away. She and I swept and scrubbed long covered surfaces for a week. I kept most of the paintings. I kept my basic furniture. I kept my computer and printer of course. I kept every precious thing that he had given me.
         For the first time in many years, I started walking down city streets just for the pleasure of it.  One morning as I was locking the front door preparing for a pleasant wander, my next door neighbor called out, “hey is your mother home?”
          As I looked at her in wonder, it came to me that I recognized my own mind of old and that it was good to be standing here this day. Very good.