Although the years have streamed by at an incredible rate, I have discovered a couple places at my house that the passing time has overlooked. The clock may continue to advance, but dust is the only evidence of it’s movement.
How can all those years march past so closely without even peering into the garage attic, and how can they so obviously miss the top shelves on the back porch?
I started cleaning out the garage attic. I found an original box containing a Star Wars Ewok Village, two McDonald’s Happy Meal boats, a box full of very old letters and a June 1955 This Week magazine, a library of 8 track tapes, a Toyota bumper, a box containing 3 roughly painted model pick-ups, and many original packing boxes (slide projector, lava lamp, boom box, Associated RC car parts, etc.) all waiting there, patiently collecting dust, just in case I need them again.
How could an arsenal of squirt weapons (hard evidence of the last great summer squirt gun battle of 1995) lay in wait on the back porch top shelf for 20 years?
The air powered motorcycle I got for Brandon when he was about 3, souvenir Canfield Diet Chocolate Fudge soda cans, baseballs and fishing lures from when Robin was 8 or 10, wooden clothes pins, drum sticks, a shaker can of Burnishine Glide Rite Dance Floor Wax from our 25th anniversary party, a plastic bag of Lucky Beer twist-top bottle caps with hieroglyphic riddles printed inside, two “welcome the new baby” flower pots from when the boys were born, an incense burner, a sand candle, Diane’s Tempera Poster Paints pack, five bottles of Imperial Miracle Bubbles, and a railroad spike; all this and more waiting on those shelves.
But this is not an inventory, its an invenstory. These are precious artifacts from a society that once flourished here. Why disturb their peaceful slumber now?
I get to hold and savor up close the color, texture, the weight, even the sounds from these memories. When I’m gone they will be disconnected memories in a garage sale or off to the Salvation Army? I’m not crying, that’s just the way it is.
Our house is almost 110 years old. We’ve lived here 42 of those years. Looking out through my eyes, I still feel much like the guy who recently moved in. Looking back from the mirror, I see an old man.
Time has been speeding for me but it’s undeniable that it stands still in these two areas. Maybe if I made a comfortable place to curl up and rest in that dark, quiet garage attic……..