Weaving A Web
My in-laws are moving to Florida, so we spent part of the weekend going through their house and helping them get rid of stuff. They’re downsizing, so a lot of the things they’ve collected over the years has to go. I’m not a collector, but my husband is. If I weren’t married to him, it would have taken me five minutes to weed through everything—of course, if I weren’t married to him, I wouldn’t have been there at all. JBut not only was he looking at items, but I was looking with both him and my kids in mind. Would he find use for that chair? Would the girls want that set of dishes? So we decided on a piece of furniture or two, some useful, garage-type items (his purview) and some knickknacks and photos. My daughters were there, too, which added to the length of time we spent considering. College Girl is a collector like her dad and just likes to accumulate. Banana Girl was hungry, so her heart wasn’t in it, but I didn’t want to leave her out.
Honestly, though, both girls are at the stage in their life where they are looking forward, not backward. Maybe it’s because they arelooking forward to the lives they’re going to be making on their own that I paused a lot more often than usual and was reluctant to give up. They might not recognize a need or a desire for something right now, but someday...especially photos. Knickknacks and photos of ancestors provide a connection to the past. Photos tell stories in facial expressions, hair and fashion, and life events. Knickknacks hold value to the owner, even if others don’t understand why. And someday, we’re going to want that connection. We might even turn that value into our own, morphing it into something we care about for our own reasons.
So we came home with a carload of stuff that now needs to find a place in our house. In the past, I was able to convince my husband to clean out the storage room in our basement because the choice was to either clean it out or buy a bigger house. Neither of us wanted to move, so that was a great incentive. Now, we need to hang things, store things, and find places for things. We also have to go back and get a few more items that we left behind. Somehow, I’ll find a place for everything and it’s nice to have the connections.
The characters in my books value their connections to others as well. Most have a parent or grandparent with whom they’ve made memories. Some have children with whom they share those memories. A few even pass on their own memories to people unrelated to them, weaving the web even tighter.
As I look forward to the days where my kids move out of my house and into their own lives, I draw that web tighter around me, and them. And I accept that the need for that web means more clutter. The good kind!
Honestly, though, both girls are at the stage in their life where they are looking forward, not backward. Maybe it’s because they arelooking forward to the lives they’re going to be making on their own that I paused a lot more often than usual and was reluctant to give up. They might not recognize a need or a desire for something right now, but someday...especially photos. Knickknacks and photos of ancestors provide a connection to the past. Photos tell stories in facial expressions, hair and fashion, and life events. Knickknacks hold value to the owner, even if others don’t understand why. And someday, we’re going to want that connection. We might even turn that value into our own, morphing it into something we care about for our own reasons.
So we came home with a carload of stuff that now needs to find a place in our house. In the past, I was able to convince my husband to clean out the storage room in our basement because the choice was to either clean it out or buy a bigger house. Neither of us wanted to move, so that was a great incentive. Now, we need to hang things, store things, and find places for things. We also have to go back and get a few more items that we left behind. Somehow, I’ll find a place for everything and it’s nice to have the connections.
The characters in my books value their connections to others as well. Most have a parent or grandparent with whom they’ve made memories. Some have children with whom they share those memories. A few even pass on their own memories to people unrelated to them, weaving the web even tighter.
As I look forward to the days where my kids move out of my house and into their own lives, I draw that web tighter around me, and them. And I accept that the need for that web means more clutter. The good kind!
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