There is imprinted in my DNA a basic instruction. It says: Never throw away something you might be able to use later.
I am trying to rewrite that instruction, which I have followed all too well, or at least to redefine it. I am locked in a mental battle that parallels disputes over interpreting our constitution: strict construction or loose construction.
I have been a strict constructionist of my genetic instructions. If there is any conceivable possibility that I might be able to use something later, I've kept it. (And it has occasionally paid off: just the other day I used a piece of metal tubing left over from a boat shade, a bail from a five-gallon bucket and a hose clamp to repair a colorful little wind-driven whirlygig down by the patio.)
I am trying to accept the notion that I should keep only those things that there is a reasonably good chance that I will need. I'm not sure the bail from the bucket or the piece from the boat would qualify.
I have been given some impetus in my quest because we are thinking about downsizing our home.
I have already tackled my library and my closet, though much remains to be done in those departments.
But those have been minor forays compared to the task now at hand. Confronting stuff in general.
So, there I stood in the middle of a storage building, confronted with the reality of my resolution.
Various tools from past projects: a tile cutter and a grout float I bought when I remodeled the kitchen of an old house we owned in Montgomery.
A pipe flaring tool.
A gear puller.
I couldn't recall why I had acquired some of those items.
But realistically, would I ever use them again?
And the smaller things: screws and nails and bolts, all of differing sizes. Would I ever have or take the time to sort them out. An electric motor from a food processor, hinges from a glass door, things that I couldn't identify but which I obviously thought I might use for something.
Cans of paint that, even if it isn't a lump inside the can, probably wouldn't cover anything I started painting and which probably could not be matched.
I divided the stuff into two piles -- keep and discard.
Some of the stuff migrated from one pile to another more than once. After disposing of what I could bear to, I took the rest home and put it in the cave, the name we give to a part of the crawl space. There's standing headroom and lights, but now it is dense with the stuff from the storage building, and I still have a lot of decisions to make. If do sell the house soon, I either will speed up the decision process or carry a bunch of stuff on one more trip.
Sorting through the accumulation, I think of my grandmother. She saved everything: the string that closed a 25-pound bag of flour, the empty 10-pound sugar sack, the gallon syrup jug.
The difference is, she knew the end use of the stuff she was saving. I have yet to get there.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
