Sunday, May 11, 2008

Spring Cleaning

The last two months have been a bit overwhelming. The last week or so has been a lot better: time to breathe, see some friends, indulge in time outdoors, cook favorite old recipes, finish another knit project, repot the orchids, break through a novel logjam, and clear up the utter mess parts of the house became lately.

When my mother-in-law passed away in April, we found ourselves once again dealing with sorrow and depression and material possessions all at the same time. I remember so many other similar occasions. It's a little bit like a puzzle in reverse, figuring out where all the pieces that once fit together should now go, and become pieces of new puzzles.

I remember helping my mother put my father's clothing into bags for the Salvation Army to come collect, not long after the last sympathy flower bouquets were wilted and gone. When we left that apartment a few months later, after having lived there 12 years, we were able to literally leave behind a lot of stuff we didn't want, as the landlord graciously said it was ok because he was hiring a dumpster to renovate the place anyway. So danish modern chairs and an ancient bed built from a wooden door and other physical oddities of my childhood were now gone from my life along with my father. For the first time in my 30 years, I was suddenly responsible for the furnishings of an entire new apartment, not just one room. The mingled sense of loss and liberation was very odd.

When an orchid acquaintance died suddenly, I helped his friends clear out all that was left of his apartment after his family went through it, the orchids and supplies. The plants were mostly dead because the family hadn't allowed the friends in any sooner than three weeks after his passing. We heaved potfuls of dried brown stuff and petrified mix into trash bags, saving the pots. Other people took the plants still alive, hoping to revive them.

My mother went into a nursing home and though we hoped that someday she might move into assisted living I decided it was best to clear out her studio. We took in things I couldn't bear to part with, put some into storage and brought some things home. We sold a few things to friends moving into a new house. We curbed things I had longed for years to dispose of, including the solid teak desk my father bought years before that was utterly impractical, painful to bump into, had no storage space and soaked up every possible bit of dirt. The apartment itself always felt cursed to me, ever since the first cockroach invasion and then later the fly invasion...I was relieved to walk out of there for the last time, feeling like my mother's unhealthy karma was in some way reduced.

My mother-in-law was unable to return to her old apartment after a stroke nine years ago, and we spent literally a year and a half clearing out the place, keeping the two-year lease active while she hoped for a fuller recovery that would allow her to climb the stairs into the building once again. Meanwhile her more necessary worldly goods went into a new apartment near us, and then yet another apartment.

Now we've walked away from that apartment too, again leaving behind a few things of no consequence, and with a few good feelings of distributing stuff where it might do some good. Wheelchairs and medical conveniences went to a charity. Used clothing went to a nursing home. Better clothing went to Goodwill. A deserving neighbor got dishes and curtains. Sheets and towels went to a cat rescue group. Good wood furniture went to craigslist buyers, including a family furnishing a beach house. I'm still selling a few shiny things on ebay.

And today we finished integrating the furniture we wanted, into our home. A beautiful inlaid table is outclassing everything else in our living room (except of course the books and orchids); a wood cabinet and bookcase are lurking in the study, another bookcase fit absolutely perfectly into my closet, and the other cabinet will stand out in the open in our bedroom in place of a large, hideous steamer trunk my husband years ago "inherited" from a former roommate. (The yarn once within that trunk is now in another closet until I decide its fate.) My husband is happy that a few material things he grew up with are back in his life.

Here in our one apartment, we have parts of four other people's lives now solidly part of our own. My mother's painting of Vitotus, Lithuania's emblem, sweaters and scarfs she knitted, and cookbooks she made hundreds of meals from. Dishes, pots and pans I grew up with. A solid oak bookcase my father treasured, and many of his books. Mahogany bookcases, the table and cabinets my in-laws had, and yet more books my father-in-law collected. More dishes. A white alabaster box. A memory museum.

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