it is nearly september,, i know,, but it is “spring cleaning” time here in the canyon…
Clutter by ~mayhemproject on deviantART
some of you may remember this description of what my house looked like the first time i walked in the door from an archived post called “my benefactor“:
“it was locked, locked again,, and triple locked.. it was alarmed and booby trapped to injure or incapacitate any and all comers… it was piled high with trash, smashed wine bottles, empty tins of salmon and sardines… it held years worth of old and now useless keepsakes, as the mold and dust had over come them… it was full of rat poison, dead mice,, a few dead birds…well to say the least i was unprepared… believe me when i say,, i am no domestic goddess,,, but this was totally another affair….”
i kid you not….
while i succeeded in getting ben to part with two truck loads of what you and i would commonly call garbage, at that time,, everything that he found himself unable to part with was either hoarded into piles in his bedroom,, stored in boxes on the back porch, or thrown in the woodshed…
yesterday i tackled the back porch.. the unusable contents of which is currently in piles in the back yard… today i am going to go get him,, and bring him down here for a few days.. we both have dentist appointments today,, but tomorrow is going to be “clean all the crap out of his bedroom and the woodshed day”.. i have already lined up jose, the man that does all my maintenance to come and haul it all off to the dump,, so this is it… everything goes…
ben is a bit eccentric.. the home he lives in is piled high with god only knows what,, partly because he will not throw anything out,, but mostly because he has never had trash service at his house.. he is not a psychological “hoarder” he is just eccentric,, so i see no reason why now that he has grown accustomed to me being here we cannot get rid of all of this crap…
i feel that this cleaning is symbolic in a way… to me,, it means that i have come to terms with the fact that i intend to stay here.. even tho i have always known i could,, and accepted it in theory,, i believe it has taken me the better part of the last two years to come to terms with the fact- that alas,, i am home..
wait till he finds out i wanna get rid of all of “dad’s” old furniture too…..
August 21st, 2008 at 7:19 am
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August 21st, 2008 at 7:31 am
is that a hookah? …looks cool
August 21st, 2008 at 8:19 am
I love a good clean out, then within a day or two start to regret it……..I do hoard sentimental things. But they’re not yours, so whoooooosh out they go.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:30 am
Yup, throw that old shit away! There’s nothing like creating space for our thoughts to move into and stretch. It’s cathartic!
August 21st, 2008 at 11:15 am
it’s important to do whatever you have to , to make your home feel as much like YOUR home as possible.
Get a dumpster and load it up!
August 21st, 2008 at 11:34 am
good luck with cleaning! it sounds like you are taking root. i love the symbol of the tree with this…the roots stay firm, while the branches continue to fly in the breeze…
August 21st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Girlfriend! if your friend is a hoarder . . . you may be in for an unpleasant reception to the removal of that stuff. Good luck! Hoarding has psycholgical effects and unbeleavable attachement to the hoarder. It’s kind of funny though . . . I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he has to part with it really. . . ha ha.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I’ve been with you for a lot of your inner journey to this place. Welcome home. xoxo
August 21st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Nothing say permanence like getting rid of things from your past …. cleansing is the perfect step forward.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:06 pm
doing lots of “cleaning therapy” myself at the moment… and it feels GREAT to let go, send it off to be “repurposed” by someone who needs it, or just smash the junk into a dumpster…
August 21st, 2008 at 11:07 pm
This is good. The whole time I was reading, I had a sense that you were settling in, making it permanently your own. Is it possible that sometimes, organizing the detritus of someone other than ourselves, we put our own house in order? I can see myself rolling up my sleeves to do the same.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:03 am
OK! You are inspiring me! I am at least thinking about opening the shed door and dumping a hoard of boxes that have travelled with me over the last 3 house moves and not been opened! I wonder what else I may find in there?
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:28 am
now that is a mess
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:44 am
wait till he finds out i wanna get rid of all of “dad’s” old furniture too…..
Haha. Don’t all women want to get rid of some stuff that the man brings around? Especially old furniture?
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:14 am
Do you get the cooler fall air where you live? For me, when the fresher fall breeze rolls in, I get the urge to purge. I am right there with you, in spirit if not in body. Ben, the women are after you to throw out your junk.
PS, thanks for your sweet respons eon my blog. I wrote you back.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:21 am
paisley,
I want to move to France. D. says not ’til the house is cleaned out and made sellable!
Jesus! Can you imagine how much crap has been accumulated in 33 years?
Guess I won’t be moving this fall.
rel
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:41 am
I am a little teary after reading this post. That’s what I wanted for you all along – a place to call home. It has made my day to read this!
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 am
claiming the house is a huge deal. Welcome Home. And cleaning it out will feel AWESOME.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
And home is always the best place to be! I actually like cleaning, the results anyways. Sounds like you’ve got a big job to tackle there. Good luck Paisley and make sure to take a well-deserved break afterwards.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Yikes…clean out day..I always manage to some how avoid it..:)
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
This is when you decide to open an antique shop…a continual flow of neat stuff…
sharon
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:44 am
I’m with christine. When the seasons change I want to get the junk out and make space. I’m finally taking my books out of storage (2 years they’ve been gone) this weekend. Good luck. I think it’ll make you feel better.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:10 am
Spring is here the grass has riss
I wonder where the birdies is