Two or three rounds of sorting later, I’m down to calculating two variables: What will fit in the RAV, and what will fit in the tiny house.
The idea of going tiny includes divesting myself of the accumulated possessions of sixty-two years. I’ve moved so many times, moved over to accommodate others so often, that what I really face involves about two decades. But that’s enough.
Out in California, Angel’s Haven already has a full complement of free-standing furniture. Two Amish tables, my great-grandfather’s bookcase, my mother-in-law’s secretary and chair, a small desk and Cherie Meyer’s rocker fill the floors without tipping the scale to clutter. The under-bed storage compartment already contains its fill of pictures and papers. One large drawer destined for clothing now holds crockery which will need to be culled. Yet to be utilized: a couple of large cubbies, my Pier One wicker cabinet, twenty-one inches of hanging space that lacks a bar, and a rectangle of floor in the guest loft roughly the size of Patrick’s Boy Scout footlocker. I have more than enough bedding for my use and that of one guest — or two, if they don’t mind sharing. The rear storage shed currently holds storage tubs filled with bubble wrap and the sleeping bags we used to pad everything which made the journey west on the floor of Angel’s Haven. Those will need to be sorted and given away to make room for ladders, tools, an anything that won’t fit when we unpack next week.
I know that the boxes now gracing a friend’s living room in northeast Kansas City exceed what I can take. I have three more days for another pass-through, though a Wednesday trial demands my time. A recollection of dumping a drawer into a bag haunts my waking hours. My mother’s silver sewing scissors slid into its depths. I haven’t found that bag yet. I keep looking, hoping. I’ve had those scissors for thirty-two years. It seems a shame to lose them now. They don’t take much space.
I have a designated shelf in the basement here. My accommodating host hauls boxes down as I tag them for later sorting. We’ve already taken scads of my clothes to the thrift store. Prospero’s got my oak bench. The wooden stools will find their way to Will’s bar later on today. I took the ornate mirror to KC’s best stylist, Kelley Blond, and on Thursday will study my face in its beveled glass. Here and there in this house, my temporary refuge from homelessness, pieces of my life have melded into the life of my host. I plan to leave them, for his use, and for mine on my occasional visits.
A stack of old quilts rests on a box in my friend’s hallway. My great-grandmother pieced together the top of one of them from tailor’s samples. My mother made the backing. It needs their loving ministration; I had thought to take it, but it will go into a storage box along with two Ohio Star quilts from my mother. I’ll figure them out later. Perhaps I will ship them to myself, or find someone to restore them here. That problem will await me when I return.
But some things must accompany me to California. Items so far making the cut include the pre-fab table that my son assembled for me twenty years ago as well as the tiny table which stood beside my porch rocker for the last eight years. A dear soul lovingly refinished it for me, and it’s perfect for Angel’s Haven. I picture it beside me on the porch which Joe the Handyman will build for me. I can’t take my rocker, but I’ll find one out there, at some estate sale, and all will be right with my world.
Tucked into a box of towels, encased in a plastic storage container, a little piece of Patrick’s history will journey to California. I don’t know what I’ll do with it at Angel’s Haven. I have no upper cupboards there, so it cannot return to the lofty resting place which it has occupied since he carefully, tenderly, carried it home from one of our daily walks around the block, with his Beagle Chocolate tugging his arm and the neighbors calling greetings from their evening stoops. Abbey Vogt gingerly lifted it down for me. I had not seen it since I put it in the cabinet, standing on Patrick’s blue step stool — the same step-stool which I accidentally left at the Holmes house, and which the new owner will bring to me when she comes for my china cabinet tomorrow.
I had feared this fragile souvenir of my son’s earnest regard for life had not withstood the brutality of time. But it survived. It endured, despite being in an open bowl, available for any critter which might have wanted to maraud it. When Abbey rested it in my hands and I gazed down at its perfect integrity, tears fell. What better reminder of those lovely hours with my son than something so precious, so perfect, as this?
It’s the twelfth day of the forty-eighth month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.
