Boxes of <stuff> fill the den and the front and back porches. A carpet/flooring project presents the perfect opportunity to pare down, cull, and free much needed space in our rabbit-warren home. Hundreds of authors (so it seems) have written how-to’s on releasing minutiae, keepsakes, etcetera, and while I am reluctant to offer advice, replacing carpet is as good a time as any to entice a spirit of calm to one’s home. Maybe better. Having completely cleared the rooms for the crew, we can replace items carefully, thoughtfully, and gratefully, recalling said items’ usefulness and/or beauty. What is discarded, donated, or sold may be let go with kindness and gratitude.

After thirty-eight years in our home, we finally decided it was time. Work began on Labor Day, as it happens. We reminded the installer, but he only quipped, “Well, we’re laborers,” as though this made the greatest sense—to simply be about their business. The project began several days before, of moving collections, books, filled baskets from under tables, beds, and closets, as well as smaller pieces of furniture. At night Jeff and I fell into bed exhausted. The installation took two days, and then, the ordeal of replacing stored furniture and contents of some of the boxes from various temporary housing, like small spacecrafts patiently docked to the mothership.

My plan is to go through boxes, baskets, and black bags systematically by blocking a daily period, say forty-five minutes, to do this thing, saving Sunday for a wee rest. A brother-in-law suggests numbering the boxes and bags—contents unseen—then placing numbered slips of paper in a bowl and drawing one out a week. The winner goes to our neighboring town’s St. Vincent de Paul store,no peeking allowed. Draconian? Yes. I thought so as well, though the method has its merits.

I wonder too about filling a box for family members; for instance, the collection of cookbooks, many of which belonged to my mother. Books, you may know, may be shipped media-mail. Do I ask if they want them first? Or do I just send them on? Surprise! Surprise!

It is truly mind-numbing how much of anything two persons can accumulate over fifty-one years of marriage, as well as our own personal odds and ends. How like pack rats are we, my husband and I. My industrious daughter-in-law organizes garage sales with our son on a regular basis, refusing to become prisoners of stuff and nonsense. Our daughter regularly “dethugs.” But as the realtors say, location-location-location! Our children live in large metro areas, while we live rurally with fewer than 8,000 persons in a county comprising 3,000 square miles. Luckily our community center holds a yearly rummage sale in the fall. . . .

Now that I have written out my predicament, I feel much lighter already. It is true that some of us  journal to find out what we are thinking, perhaps an exercise in judgment. It works, even on Labor Day.