With diligence I grab the Red Folder marked Hanukah 2014 as well as the tiles made So Long Ago Without knowing it I leave behind the flat butterfly Hanukiah I made this year....I guess I was distracted...by the mess in the basement...
But I did find some candles...and I used this Hanukiah with its shallow places for the candles..and it did its subtle work of holding candles of light up until the last night..when they cast realms of light into the darkness and beyond..
I also take the kippah with wax inside from the candles and I head downstairs. I quickly empty the two Hanukah boxes and put everything into a third. Well, not everything. Papers and misc. crunched up stuff goes into the wastebasket.
Oh and Yes, everything Does Have a Story.
Stories, Musings emerge from the simplest things down there in the wasteland of the basement.
I reflect briefly on the Hebrew Letter for Story which begins with a Samech.
The wastebasket comes from the classroom of my favorite and everyone's favorite Humanities at West High School. Miss Westby. She was a small woman with reddish hair. Her demands on us were phenomenal. If we had texted back then, it would have been OMG or WOW.
I can still see her standing there with fierce determination as we made our way through Machiavelli and Plato. She pulled some fine writing out of me, particularly my poem about Machiavelli when I alluded to the bad politics. of the time....the travail of Viet Nam...and I recall how we all marched..
and how change came slowly..and I remember Miss Westby dearly. She was beloved for all that she did for us...and my brother retrieved this waste basket from her room just before the school was pulled down and demolished...
that was a long time ago
and here I am now.
Hanukah box is now one box with a newish lid that almost fits....and marked on the outside so I know where it is...One of my favorite parts of the Hanukah story is the part about cleaning the temple..hmm didn't see anything about cleaning a basement...but hey!! same difference!!
hahaha
I move onto a shoe box and nearby miscellaneous art.
Here are the pieces I find:
2 Drawings from the 2010 conference I went to on Society for the Arts and Health that was held here in 2010.
a Drawing a local writer I know
2 Drawings from a May Day meeting.
A series of funny cartoons
One of a teacher at the end of the school year, trying to get her nerve ends to meet.
Another of a teacher relaxing by the beach of summer.
And yet one more cartoon of The Queen of Doing Things at The Last Minute.
....speaking of the beach I found a quick watercolor done at the beach called
"25 minutes in the Heat at the Beach."
Dated 2012, it was the summer my Father died...so I must have had a few moments to run to the beach and then back to Caregiving...and watching over him.
I recall another painting done of me in the water for my first swim and him reading on the shore...
(NOTE: I will add in the actual images soon)
In the shoebox I find an old photo of May Day...yep was quite a while ago judging by the format of the photo and the trees which tell the age of the place. The Sun Canoes are just coming close to shore and I am sure Loren Kellen is on one of them, leading the way.
He's been gone 6 years now and he is dearly missed....He was a collector of things and stuff...and my oh the wake we had for him in the kitchen for days and it raining outside without stop....tears falling from the sky..a big passing...and oh the stuff he had my oh my people had quite a time going through his house of stuff.. In the course of time...I received an owl of his....a metal owl..that blinks at me from the top of the stairs..near my island stuff..calling out Who?? What?? When??
and as I sort through the stuff I come across my brother's drawing of an owl.
Perhaps this is wisdom to deal with my Incorrigible Mounds of stuff now and not leave it to other people when I am gone...What a motivator.....
and so I look upon my Stuff with a different perspective as I think of Loren...
What if I am gone...suddenly perhaps...????Will there just be a dumpster outside? and all this Precious stuff thrown out willy nilly.????
what remains????.
I look upon this Stuff with precious eyes. Retrieving the HOBT magnet,.... the artwork of plants done out in wisconsin, a lovely landscape of trees in autumn and more
so much more.
I am here, in this moment, retrieving and sorting and remembering..
the timer goes off.
Done for now.
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