November 23, 2012 at 2:30pm and 68 degrees. Windy but bright. Partly cloudy. I’m sitting on the deck with paper and pen, beer, iced tea, a book. Red is riding her bike up and down the property singing to herself. Dusty is at the swing set singing along to her ipod.
I’d spent the morning constructing a storage shelf to rein in the art room chaos. The shelves I’d attached (and reattached twice) to the walls were coming off again, taking the anchors with them. Uncle! I’m done drilling hole after hole. So, I bought a storage unit at IKEA. Put it together. Cleaned out bin after bin after drawer after pile of what I consider “process” art – paintings and collages and whathaveyou that the kids have made over the past few years (yes, it’s been awhile since I’ve touched that corner of the house). With process art, you don’t have to keep it. It’s art for art’s sake. It’s playing around with paint, pastels, glue (especially glue), stickers, rocks, chalk, etc. There were a few pieces I kept but the rest went in the recycling bin. Believe me when I say I’ve saved A LOT of the children’s artwork. The name of the game here was PURGE. It’s a game I love to play. Never gets old. Underlying the PURGE philosophy is this: if you haven’t missed the object in a year or more, chances are you’ll never miss it. One example of something (art-wise, kid-wise) is enough. Throw it away. Give it away. Recycle it. Whatever. Just get it out of the house. Your kids/executor will thank you one day. My basement? Is almost empty. For serious. Almost 10 years we’ve lived here and the mildewy conditions have worked in our favor. If something comes in, something else must go.
There was vacuuming. And spackling of all the many, many holes in the wall. A carload of trash and recycling is ready for the dump. The new fire pit was placed behind the shed in preparation for next weekend’s birthday party. There was a bit of miscellaneous laundry to do – reclaimed washcloths that had acted as brush cleaners and chalk board wipers – towels found balled up in corners (I don’t ask anymore).
So, after all that, I sat out on the deck. The hunters had finally stopped shooting for the day, more or less. The only thing I could hear was Dusty’s music beyond the bushes, Red’s singing as she rode by, the wind through the tops of the leafless trees, the neighbor’s rooster and goats. The cats strolled by, looking for sunny spots to curl up in. Charlie prefers the leafy bed under the denuded snowball bush. Pokey likes a lap more than anything. Baby Blue Star…well, he’s mysterious. I don’t know his favorite spots.
Even the guinea pigs got to spend a couple of hours in the sunny yard, munching on bright green grass that keeps growing like it’s April rather than November. Even the air smells a bit like spring. Dill has sprung up again in the garden path and seems impervious to the morning frost that whitens the car windshields, the storm door, and the dead pasture grasses.
Today it’s cold again and the kids are hanging out playing games and lolling around the house. We are inching closer and closer to Dusty’s twelfth birthday. Couple more sunsets and sunrises. The best part of holiday vacations are the days after the holiday where there’s no preparation rush, no place we need to go, nothing much we need to do, and plenty of leftovers so that cooking is minimal. I get a few things accomplished and then find a warm spot to sit and read. And look at the sky.
Life in Scribbletown 