Blank Slate

I’ve been very sparse about writing anything lately, but I wanted to take a moment to pat myself on the back for (almost) settling in to my new home. My family and I moved in exactly a year ago, and we’ve been gradually feeling like it’s our home. If you’ve read earlier posts, you might know that I am a recovering packrat (I can’t call myself a hoarder — that’s how I think of my mother, and it would kill me to own that term). Lots of last summer, fall, and winter were all about purging and organizing. I’m still culling through miscellaneous stuff, but I haven’t had a good purge session in a while and am due for one. I’m proud to say my spouse recently unpacked what we think is the last box!

What’s keeping me from doing more, other than being all binged up about getting rid of stuff in general, is lack of time. And let’s be honest: lack of focus. For example, for years my spouse and I haven’t been able to settle on whether we’re done having children. So purging the old crib and the baby and toddler clothes has been fraught with finality that I haven’t been able to embrace. Now imagine a sappy person like this trying to get rid of children’s art work and school papers. Nightmare, right? I’m getting better at it. After having heard Michael Chabon’s idea (in Manhood for Amateurs) about kids’ art, (paraphrasing) that it’s about their process and not necessary to keep the finished products, I’ve been mulling over what it is to let go of those kinds of things. There’s lots more to say on this subject, and I hope to have the nerve and time to tackle it soon.

There have been discrete tasks in the process of “moving in” that have eluded me, mostly because being the kind of organized, decisive person I dream of is still pretty far off. But life has gotten in the way. My kids are still young, and there is a tremendous amount of schlepping to do and not quite enough man/woman-power to do it. In the last year we have traveled to see distant family members; I have had a few medical setbacks; and we lost a dog and gained a bird and two hamsters. I decided a while back that, with God as my witness, I would begin to hang family photos and art on the walls. I managed to hang a difficult and large print of a famous Chinese painting (“A Day in Canton”) and a few other prints by Ray Bradbury and Maurice Sendak that I bought at the recently closed “Every Picture Tells a Story” gallery. But the photos were dusty and in need of curating. (For example, did I really need to put up that framed photo of me as a bridesmaid in 1994? No. Now what do I do with it if I don’t hang it up? This sounds like a job for the editors of Real Simple. And I would subscribe, if only that didn’t mean another pile of paper to trip over and eventually recycle.)

Now I’ve got a deadline of sorts looming. Other than writing my book and other pieces, so easily procrastinated, I’ve got a party coming up. I’ve invited actual grownups to my house for a dinner for my kids’ school, and now I sense the lack of finishing touches — like family photos — as I turn my house upside down. Tonight I started dusting off and arranging family photos and remaining art that still belongs in our life. (The Egon Schiele nude is in the garage. The arcane children’s literature illustrations are at the ready.)

As I arrange all of the photos somewhere near where they will end up tomorrow, I realize that I’ve been living for the last year in a home that’s like a blank slate without the images of loved ones visible in the house. It wasn’t by design, but it was sort of liberating. One of the reasons purging is hard is that I have always had the weight of family history always on my mind. Letting go and being in the moment is tremendously hard. But having almost no photos on the wall for a year has shut out one channel of the chatter that I find overwhelming. I’ve needed it, but I think I’m ready for the noise again.