One entire bay of our three-bay garage is full of boxes, most of them taped shut, some of them labeled and some not. This is because we moved two and a half months ago and haven’t bothered to unpack our non-essentials yet. So the stack of boxes in the garage is much taller than I am, and each of the boxes seems to weigh about as much as I do.
I’ve come to see it, regretfully, as our own personal landfill. The sight of all those boxes piled up makes me feel guilty in the same way that passing a mountain-sized heap of trash at a municipal dump does. What are we ever going to do with all of that stuff, and how did we accumulate it all, and what’s really in those boxes, anyway, and are we really ever going to sort through them?
Once in a while, though, we actually need something from our storage collection, and then the situation gets even uglier as we start trying to excavate through our neatly boxed archaeological dig.
But over the weekend, I was surprised by a small sense of triumph inspired by the stacks o’boxes.
During the spring, as we packed up all our belongings, we filled three large boxes for the annual library book sale. I asked the library if we could possibly drop the boxes off a few months early, knowing they normally didn’t start collecting contributions for the sale until June, but the librarian told me they didn’t have enough storage space. So in the end, our movers took the boxes of books to our new house, along with all the things we actually wanted.
But finally it’s June, the month the library volunteers start actively collecting books for the sale, and I had a place to bring them. One task I was absolutely determined to accomplish before leaving for Portland early afternoon on Saturday was dropping off the books. But first I had to find the right boxes, pull them out of the stacks, and load them into my car.
Quite uncharacteristically, though, I must say I worked efficiently and effectively. I remembered to wear boots, because of the likelihood that items would fall on my feet as I moved things around. I found a pair of work gloves, which I knew would make tugging at the boxes and even lifting them easier. I backed the car right up to the garage door, so that if I did happen to find the boxes I wanted, it would be easier to load them. In short, I worked sensibly, rather than in my usual fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants way.
And to my great delight, it paid off. After moving just a small number of heavy boxes, the first one marked for the sale revealed itself, and the other two did as well not long after. There were no crashes or breaks or other mishaps. I even managed to load the boxes into the car myself.
It would have been so much more typical of me to wait until my husband Rick could help me. But in this case, I was under the gun. Rick was at Tim’s baseball game, and I needed to get this done. So I found the boxes, moved the boxes, lifted the boxes, and was rewarded with a tremendous sense of empowerment.
Later in the weekend, I thought about a friend of mine who found herself unexpectedly on her own this spring. She hasn’t complained or even talked about it much, but she had her great moment of empowerment when it came time to prepare the swimming pool for summer. She hired her usual pool service to do the initial steps of opening the pool, but she then spent three days trying to balance the chemicals properly to get the water to clear – a job her husband had always done in the past. When her efforts finally proved successful, she crowed unabashedly about her newfound chemistry skills.
There was no doubt that this was a symbolic moment for my friend, discovering that she really was capable of managing pool science on her own when necessity called. I have to admit I’m happy I had the option to wait for Rick to move the boxes, knowing he’d be back in a matter of hours, but I’m even happier that I didn’t do that. There are enough things I rely on him to do, either out of habit or out of the belief that I can’t: deal with ticks when they appear on the dogs or the kids, shovel snow from the roof, climb the ladder to change the batteries in the ceiling smoke detectors. Not only finding the boxes but going about it the right way – even simply remembering to wear work gloves – gave me a great feeling about myself. It’s trivial, but it mattered to me: I solved a problem on my own. And I couldn’t keep from feeling proud about it.
Showing posts with label boxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boxes. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Unpacking
As I slid my arm deep into the tall cardboard box and felt an edge of cardstock meet my fingertips, I knew that I’d found victory. “You have to be happy now!” I told myself. “That’s the third of the three!”
After we arrived at our new home early Wednesday evening – which is a mere three miles from our previous home as well as within the same zip code – I thought that the seemingly supererogatory organizational skills I’d been practicing for the past several weeks would pay off. I had been so vigilant about packing carefully and labeling boxes meticulously. Everything was supposed to be easy to find; nothing had been stashed away mindlessly. Especially in the final 48 hours, when I was packing those items we need at our fingertips every day, I was intentional as I slid them into boxes, paying careful attention so I’d remember just where they were once the moving trucks unloaded everything.
But once we arrived at the new house, all I could see was boxes. And yes, they were labeled – in my handwriting, no less – but the labeling wasn’t nearly as useful as I’d expected it to be. Tim can’t sleep without his ancient and ragged stuffed frog clutched in his fist, so with ever so much focus on what I was doing, I’d put the stuffed frog in a packing box with some kitchen supplies after Tim left for school on moving day. I knew I’d be unpacking kitchen supplies right away, so putting the frog in with them made sense.
Except that I was faced with at least a dozen boxes that said “Kitchen,” and none of them also said “Stuffed frog.” Somehow I’d thought I’d remember which kitchen box I expected to open first. But unlike at home when they were half-filled with the contents clearly visible, now they all looked the same.
It reminded me of an incident when I was about eight years old and visiting my grandparents in Colorado one winter. My grandparents had just returned from visiting Japan, and my grandfather gave me a Japanese coin. One snowy afternoon, my father and I were out walking along my grandparents’ driveway when I suggested a game. “I’ll hide the Japanese coin, and you find it,” I said. I thought I knew exactly which lump of snow I’d tucked it under, but once my father started looking – no doubt with complete prescience as to how this game was going to turn out – I realized the clump of snow I’d chosen didn’t really look different from any other clump of snow; it only looked specific and identifiable when it was the one I was focused on. So too with the boxes.
By dinnertime on moving day, there were three things that were vexing me because I knew I’d put them in sensible places but couldn’t find them. One was the frog; one was a stack of clean sheets for our double bed; and the final one was Holly’s homework notebook.
By seven o’clock I’d found the stuffed frog. Just before bed, as I wandered around the house staring at boxes, I lifted one and found that the box below it was labeled “Sheets for double bed.” There was the second mystery solved. Only Holly’s notebook remained lost.
And then late this morning I remembered packing the notebook at the same time I threw the final armload of jackets and hats from the mudroom into a box. So I found a box labeled “jackets and boots,” reached in, and pulled out Holly’s homework notebook, feeling every bit as triumphant as Little Jack Horner possibly could have.
Thus, the moment when I told myself, “Now, you have to be happy; that’s three for three!” And I was indeed happy. As happy as I can be with dozens of boxes filling every room in a house that still seems strange and disorienting to me.
Finding the three lost items gave me a sense of victory, though, just as unpacking the boxes eventually will. I’ll stick with it, remembering the Japanese coin (which even at the time my father and I laughed about; it wasn’t anything of significant value, and I’d learned my lesson). Boxes that look individual on one setting all look alike in another. And so I’ll just keep slogging through until everything is out of them and they are once again a herd of empty boxes.
After we arrived at our new home early Wednesday evening – which is a mere three miles from our previous home as well as within the same zip code – I thought that the seemingly supererogatory organizational skills I’d been practicing for the past several weeks would pay off. I had been so vigilant about packing carefully and labeling boxes meticulously. Everything was supposed to be easy to find; nothing had been stashed away mindlessly. Especially in the final 48 hours, when I was packing those items we need at our fingertips every day, I was intentional as I slid them into boxes, paying careful attention so I’d remember just where they were once the moving trucks unloaded everything.
But once we arrived at the new house, all I could see was boxes. And yes, they were labeled – in my handwriting, no less – but the labeling wasn’t nearly as useful as I’d expected it to be. Tim can’t sleep without his ancient and ragged stuffed frog clutched in his fist, so with ever so much focus on what I was doing, I’d put the stuffed frog in a packing box with some kitchen supplies after Tim left for school on moving day. I knew I’d be unpacking kitchen supplies right away, so putting the frog in with them made sense.
Except that I was faced with at least a dozen boxes that said “Kitchen,” and none of them also said “Stuffed frog.” Somehow I’d thought I’d remember which kitchen box I expected to open first. But unlike at home when they were half-filled with the contents clearly visible, now they all looked the same.
It reminded me of an incident when I was about eight years old and visiting my grandparents in Colorado one winter. My grandparents had just returned from visiting Japan, and my grandfather gave me a Japanese coin. One snowy afternoon, my father and I were out walking along my grandparents’ driveway when I suggested a game. “I’ll hide the Japanese coin, and you find it,” I said. I thought I knew exactly which lump of snow I’d tucked it under, but once my father started looking – no doubt with complete prescience as to how this game was going to turn out – I realized the clump of snow I’d chosen didn’t really look different from any other clump of snow; it only looked specific and identifiable when it was the one I was focused on. So too with the boxes.
By dinnertime on moving day, there were three things that were vexing me because I knew I’d put them in sensible places but couldn’t find them. One was the frog; one was a stack of clean sheets for our double bed; and the final one was Holly’s homework notebook.
By seven o’clock I’d found the stuffed frog. Just before bed, as I wandered around the house staring at boxes, I lifted one and found that the box below it was labeled “Sheets for double bed.” There was the second mystery solved. Only Holly’s notebook remained lost.
And then late this morning I remembered packing the notebook at the same time I threw the final armload of jackets and hats from the mudroom into a box. So I found a box labeled “jackets and boots,” reached in, and pulled out Holly’s homework notebook, feeling every bit as triumphant as Little Jack Horner possibly could have.
Thus, the moment when I told myself, “Now, you have to be happy; that’s three for three!” And I was indeed happy. As happy as I can be with dozens of boxes filling every room in a house that still seems strange and disorienting to me.
Finding the three lost items gave me a sense of victory, though, just as unpacking the boxes eventually will. I’ll stick with it, remembering the Japanese coin (which even at the time my father and I laughed about; it wasn’t anything of significant value, and I’d learned my lesson). Boxes that look individual on one setting all look alike in another. And so I’ll just keep slogging through until everything is out of them and they are once again a herd of empty boxes.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
...And still more boxes
In sorting through literally every last item we own over the past month as we prepare for a household move, I inevitably became disabused of my illusion that we as a family are good about not storehousing our possessions.
I believed we lived lighter than most people we know, and the truth is we probably do. We don’t keep tons of books around; we read them and pass them along. We keep only the very best examples of the kids’ artwork and schoolwork. We cycle through knickknacks and similar gift items fairly rapidly: we try them out, and if they don’t work for us, on they go. If we do like them, we find the right place for them.
But now that the packing is about 90% done, I’m flabbergasted by how much there still was to sort through.
What’s wrong with this picture? I kept asking myself. How can one family be so materially rooted, for lack of a better expression? If our house was consumed by a fire, earthquake or tsunami, heaven forbid, what of this would I actually miss?
Next to our bed is a large packing carton that I have been filling with the personal items that I keep closest at hand, right in our bedroom. So far it contains my jewelry, photo albums, chargers to the electronics I use most often, my camera, pens, a flashlight, a knit wrap that my mother-in-law made for me, my Kindle. I want to think that that box, along with my laptop, my running shoes and the items in my purse, comprise the full extent of what I consider absolutely vital. I want to think that if I had to, I could happily move on to our next home with just that box and no additional personal items.
But it would be hard to cook with no cookware, and it would be discouraging to decorate for the holidays absent our twenty-year collection of holiday ornaments. And it simply wouldn’t make sense from the perspective of conserving resources to have to replace items I already own such as office supplies, dishes and the kids’ favorite toys. Those are all in other boxes.
I started the packing process with a slightly supercilious attitude. Visitors to our home often comment on how tidy it always is; we always respond it’s just because we don’t keep a lot of Stuff, capital “S,” around. But I’m afraid I stand corrected. When I look at the boxes all over the house, awaiting the moving trucks, I don’t think we’ve succeeded much at all in trying to live lightly.
We’ll soon find out just what we really need, though. Rick and I agreed that rather than start a marathon unpacking endeavor when we get to our new home, we’ll unpack things only as we want them. That way we’ll soon know what we really use and what we don’t, as we see what remains in boxes after a week, a month, a year. And then maybe we can make decisions about living with even less Stuff. Because right now, it feels overwhelming, but somehow our lives absorb it all. That is, until we try to box it and move it, and then we need to take stock of why there’s so much of it.
I’m certain the box next to the bed doesn’t contain the full extent of material items I really care about, but I’d like to think it does. I don’t know exactly how to cut back on our physical inventory right now. But it will surely be useful to find out what we end up unpacking from all the other boxes, and when.
I believed we lived lighter than most people we know, and the truth is we probably do. We don’t keep tons of books around; we read them and pass them along. We keep only the very best examples of the kids’ artwork and schoolwork. We cycle through knickknacks and similar gift items fairly rapidly: we try them out, and if they don’t work for us, on they go. If we do like them, we find the right place for them.
But now that the packing is about 90% done, I’m flabbergasted by how much there still was to sort through.
What’s wrong with this picture? I kept asking myself. How can one family be so materially rooted, for lack of a better expression? If our house was consumed by a fire, earthquake or tsunami, heaven forbid, what of this would I actually miss?
Next to our bed is a large packing carton that I have been filling with the personal items that I keep closest at hand, right in our bedroom. So far it contains my jewelry, photo albums, chargers to the electronics I use most often, my camera, pens, a flashlight, a knit wrap that my mother-in-law made for me, my Kindle. I want to think that that box, along with my laptop, my running shoes and the items in my purse, comprise the full extent of what I consider absolutely vital. I want to think that if I had to, I could happily move on to our next home with just that box and no additional personal items.
But it would be hard to cook with no cookware, and it would be discouraging to decorate for the holidays absent our twenty-year collection of holiday ornaments. And it simply wouldn’t make sense from the perspective of conserving resources to have to replace items I already own such as office supplies, dishes and the kids’ favorite toys. Those are all in other boxes.
I started the packing process with a slightly supercilious attitude. Visitors to our home often comment on how tidy it always is; we always respond it’s just because we don’t keep a lot of Stuff, capital “S,” around. But I’m afraid I stand corrected. When I look at the boxes all over the house, awaiting the moving trucks, I don’t think we’ve succeeded much at all in trying to live lightly.
We’ll soon find out just what we really need, though. Rick and I agreed that rather than start a marathon unpacking endeavor when we get to our new home, we’ll unpack things only as we want them. That way we’ll soon know what we really use and what we don’t, as we see what remains in boxes after a week, a month, a year. And then maybe we can make decisions about living with even less Stuff. Because right now, it feels overwhelming, but somehow our lives absorb it all. That is, until we try to box it and move it, and then we need to take stock of why there’s so much of it.
I’m certain the box next to the bed doesn’t contain the full extent of material items I really care about, but I’d like to think it does. I don’t know exactly how to cut back on our physical inventory right now. But it will surely be useful to find out what we end up unpacking from all the other boxes, and when.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Boxes upon boxes
The attic clean-out project continues, and the archive problem grows only more complex. Earlier this month I wrote about not knowing what to do with a box of letters sent to me from myriad different friends when I was in my twenties. But that was just one box, and at least the content of the letters was ultimately the responsibility of other people.
All of which is to say that the letters were nothing compared to the journals.
I started keeping a journal when I was in fifth grade. That was 34 years ago. I have a paper trail that leads continuously from 1977 to 2003, when mercifully I started storing journals electronically instead of in print. That’s a lot of looseleaf binders. Boxes and boxes of them. Binder after binder. Thousands and thousands of pages covered with my blue-inked script. Friend issues, school woes, fitness concerns, academic successes, job aspirations, job disappointments, blind dates, breakups, engagement, marriage, travels, pregnancies, parenting. Page after page after page, filling binder after binder, which fill box after box. And all of them heavy and hard to move.
So it’s the same problem as with the letters only hundred-fold. I don’t want to read them. I don’t want anyone else to read them. And yet I just can’t see heaving them into the recycling bin.
I have often said that memorabilia isn’t particularly important to me because the essays I’ve written and published ever since I was in my early twenties serve as record enough for all that has happened in my personal life over the years. And in a way, that’s true: everything significant appears somewhere, in some form, in a published essay. But at the same time, the essays present a sanitized version. It’s not that they’re all humorous or that I avoid anything difficult when I write essays, just that even the edgier topics get spun, reworked into an appropriate telling for a public audience. The journals are raw, uncensored, unedited. If my children want someday to know what I thought about corporate life or toilet training toddlers or attending back-to-school night as a parent, they can find an essay of mine about it and read the version for which I chose my words meticulously. That’s a much more comfortable fit than thinking of them paging indiscriminately through my journals.
My sister told me that once when she was home visiting my parents, she found a journal she kept in college. She read the whole journal cover to cover and then threw it in a trash bin at the airport as she was flying home at the end of the visit. She chose the airport for its anonymity.
For me to throw my journals in a random trash bin would constitute an environmental disposal hazard punishable by fine or imprisonment, at this point. I’d almost have to haul in one of those transportable dumpsters that people use when they are moving. A bonfire would be no less environmentally hazardous. I’m afraid for the time being, I’m stuck with them.
It’s ironic when I think of all the classes I’ve taught in writing personal narrative and how many times I’ve encouraged my students in those classes to keep a journal. “Keep” is obviously the wrong verb. Write a journal, I’m now tempted to counsel instead, but find a way to dispose of each day’s record as soon as you’re done writing it.
Fortunately, in 2003 I started keeping my files only electronically. I save them and even back them up, but they aren’t taking up any tangible space. They’re in The Cloud, that appropriately named ephemeral space in the Ethernet where files exist in impalpable form. And although I’ve been warned by various computer security experts that they could become lost from the cloud at any time, that doesn’t scare me. In fact, it’s a little bit tempting. A small part of me hopes they do.
But that’s just the past nine years. It’s the records of the preceding quarter-century that are the problem. They fill box after box, big heavy boxes. Perhaps we could use them as sandbags to stop a flood. That would kill two birds with one stone: help remedy an emergency situation while also potentially ruining the journal pages with water damage. It sounds like a good ending to my journals. But I don’t wish for any floods to take place. So as of right now, they’ll stay in the attic, filling box after box, until I come to peace with them.
All of which is to say that the letters were nothing compared to the journals.
I started keeping a journal when I was in fifth grade. That was 34 years ago. I have a paper trail that leads continuously from 1977 to 2003, when mercifully I started storing journals electronically instead of in print. That’s a lot of looseleaf binders. Boxes and boxes of them. Binder after binder. Thousands and thousands of pages covered with my blue-inked script. Friend issues, school woes, fitness concerns, academic successes, job aspirations, job disappointments, blind dates, breakups, engagement, marriage, travels, pregnancies, parenting. Page after page after page, filling binder after binder, which fill box after box. And all of them heavy and hard to move.
So it’s the same problem as with the letters only hundred-fold. I don’t want to read them. I don’t want anyone else to read them. And yet I just can’t see heaving them into the recycling bin.
I have often said that memorabilia isn’t particularly important to me because the essays I’ve written and published ever since I was in my early twenties serve as record enough for all that has happened in my personal life over the years. And in a way, that’s true: everything significant appears somewhere, in some form, in a published essay. But at the same time, the essays present a sanitized version. It’s not that they’re all humorous or that I avoid anything difficult when I write essays, just that even the edgier topics get spun, reworked into an appropriate telling for a public audience. The journals are raw, uncensored, unedited. If my children want someday to know what I thought about corporate life or toilet training toddlers or attending back-to-school night as a parent, they can find an essay of mine about it and read the version for which I chose my words meticulously. That’s a much more comfortable fit than thinking of them paging indiscriminately through my journals.
My sister told me that once when she was home visiting my parents, she found a journal she kept in college. She read the whole journal cover to cover and then threw it in a trash bin at the airport as she was flying home at the end of the visit. She chose the airport for its anonymity.
For me to throw my journals in a random trash bin would constitute an environmental disposal hazard punishable by fine or imprisonment, at this point. I’d almost have to haul in one of those transportable dumpsters that people use when they are moving. A bonfire would be no less environmentally hazardous. I’m afraid for the time being, I’m stuck with them.
It’s ironic when I think of all the classes I’ve taught in writing personal narrative and how many times I’ve encouraged my students in those classes to keep a journal. “Keep” is obviously the wrong verb. Write a journal, I’m now tempted to counsel instead, but find a way to dispose of each day’s record as soon as you’re done writing it.
Fortunately, in 2003 I started keeping my files only electronically. I save them and even back them up, but they aren’t taking up any tangible space. They’re in The Cloud, that appropriately named ephemeral space in the Ethernet where files exist in impalpable form. And although I’ve been warned by various computer security experts that they could become lost from the cloud at any time, that doesn’t scare me. In fact, it’s a little bit tempting. A small part of me hopes they do.
But that’s just the past nine years. It’s the records of the preceding quarter-century that are the problem. They fill box after box, big heavy boxes. Perhaps we could use them as sandbags to stop a flood. That would kill two birds with one stone: help remedy an emergency situation while also potentially ruining the journal pages with water damage. It sounds like a good ending to my journals. But I don’t wish for any floods to take place. So as of right now, they’ll stay in the attic, filling box after box, until I come to peace with them.
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