This time of year, like you, I go through the old stuff, amazed at what I hang onto. I'm not sure how it works, but suddenly all the old stuff starts to look really old, stale, dead on the vine, and I know it's time to let it go. I wonder how some of these things ever had a place in my life, so un-me to me they suddenly appear.
I easily toss the usual suspects: shirts, shorts, pants (lowrise? wtf?), butter, past "good" date meds, creams, hair products; magazines, cds, jackets, shoes I never ever wore nor ever will, cleaning products, Christmas lights, tupperware, cables, chords, and wires which attach to who knows what device or decade, water bottles, empty file folders, yoga pants, yoga tops, cat toys (I have no cat, but just in case one should drop by...), pennies, baby toys, catalogues, twist ties, chopsticks, flip-flops, tea, canvas/grocery bags, frozen food, etc.
What's harder: Sheets, blankets, books, pillows, shoes from Schueller's I still haven't worn, cute lone socks for which I am certain there is a mate somewhere, voicemails, emails, to-do lists, "memorable" canvas bags/t-shirts from events, cute wool socks or sweaters, even though I can no longer wear wool, etc.
What's impossible: Anything Jude creates or comes into contact with—a drawing, a note that says "open the door," stuffed animals, a paperclip that he's bent into the shape of the letter L, clothes that are too small and now useless—as well as anything he has given me, right down to the drawings mostly drawn by his preschool teachers, where it is impossible not to spot his one contribution in the single slash of an orange crayon milling around the otherwise too orderly page. Can't do without that, now can I?
And then there's the category of handwritten notes, one which I never actually consider categorizing as toss, save, deal with later, or anything. Notes, simply are. Like air, earth, fire, water, yoga, breath: it is what it is. They don't go through the filter of thought and decision, notes don't; they just stay. Most of you have seen my bathroom and know what I'm talking about: the walls are wallpapered with handwritten notes to accompany the ones inked into the walls. Notes also dot my cabinets and bookshelves: "Thanks Rox! Hi Rox! Here's $50! See you soon!" All in glorious shades of post-its, accompanied by hearts, smilies, ellipses... The goldmine of notes are the ones on loose leaf, sometimes accompanied by a stick figure drawing, notably the ones by Too Cute of his dog-self in profile with deadpan loyalty. But even a simple note from a stranger taped to a check for a workshop that illegibly scrawls: "See you March 8th!" signed by unknown is a keeper without question.
Oddly, I suppose texts fall into the same category. I rarely toss them, but then again, that could be laziness. But I suppose it all comes down to that old thing about human expression, the need to write it down, the need to relate to one another, the simple, organic need for reciprocity in the human condition— to hear and be heard, touch and be touched, see and be seen, giving and receiving, the same way we breathe in, breathe out. And to see the trace of humanity in the artistry of a handwritten note, each letter of each word containing its own unique beauty and vibration, an artful message in itself, long before the contents line up to "make sense" in the conventional way.
Or perhaps notes are a crucial reminder of life in this age of stuff, where "we" all to often get buried and flattened beneath the dull death of our clutter that "we" can never get rid of, so duped are "we" into believing that our stuff with its many nostalgic and promising portals to the past and future are the only things that can save us.
Write with me! Do you save handwritten notes? Do you write them? What do they mean or not mean to you?
