Spring Cleaning

The peach tree is budding, daffodils are in bloom, and before I start complaining about the heat, my plan is to tackle the garage--to weed out all of the outgrown, unnecessary, and no longer useful items that have accumulated over the past eighteen years because...we might need them...they're still good...but one of the kids made this. It's not that the garage is a disorganized mess (were all too OCD for that), it's just that there is too much stuff--much of it acquired after my parents died when I was too overwhelmed to sort through closets and drawers. "Let's just pack it all into a moving van and you can go through it at home," my husband said in an effort to be helpful. Six years later, I'm still going through the stuff. Like a miner panning for gold, I never know what a particular box might reveal, but I know one thing for certain, we don't need any of it--and I already have enough mementos.

Last week, I began in earnest to clear enough space for at least one car, vowing to fill the back seat and trunk of 4-Runner and take at least one trip a week to one of the local thrift shops. Bag by bag is my motto and so far it's working. Each bag lightens my load and puts a bounce in my step as I fondly remember of simple my life was when I left Ohio in 1971, with all my worldly possessions packed into the trunk of my VW. After all, isn't spring about renewal, new beginnings, and fresh starts?

It occurs to me that the garage is a metaphor for the clutter I've allowed to accumulate in my life, clutter that blocks the way and distracts me from getting the real work done. As most of you who read this blog know, a couple of years ago, I started writing a book--a memoir--about being adopted. I was about 200 pages into it when six months ago I stopped working on it and turned my attention toward other writing. Yesterday, as I was sifting through boxes, it occurred to me that I needed to clear out my own cobwebs, and get back to my own writing.

Today, it's raining and I see that as a symbol for washing away any project that no longer serve me so that I can reap the benefits of the ones that do. That goes for this blog too. I've already changed the look of it, and by the time I post my next entry I will have changed the name to something that reflects my book. This spring is not only about cleaning the garage, bag by bag, it's about finishing a project that has grown directly from my heart, word by word.