Some days I feel like a boat cut loose from its moorings. That is how I feel today, and the boat feels empty as well. A friend from years ago, someone with whom I haven’t spent time in many years, someone who I don’t talk to or write to on a regular basis, visited me overnight. When he stepped out of his car, I saw that his hair was a little grayer, but otherwise he looked the same. He’s gotten leaner over the years. I’ve gotten heavier. We probably weigh about the same, although he's several inches taller than I. We hit the ground running, exercising our smart-ass humor while catching up. Not until he commented on his father in the past tense did I realize that the man had died, just recently. In the last year we have both lost a treasured parent.
Although my house is out of control these days, I did have a loose game plan for getting it somewhat in order for this visit, but I put off pulling it off until the day of his arrival. Sheets had to be laundered, the vacuum run over the carpet upstairs, the downstairs floors swept and mopped, front door glass cleaned, sidewalk swept, and things that I am routinely allowing to collect where they are deposited because frankly I’ve run out of room and out of motivation had to be organized at least a little. The sense of orderliness that has always governed my life to a good degree has been violated, by me, so lately I soothe my conscience with assurances that I am in the process of selling down my stuff. It will be a long process, I fear. No, I don’t fear it, I just don’t like the way this reality feels, but I’m trying to own it and not let it own me.
I got my house sort of in order for this visit. Today I am reminding myself that those who care about us don’t come to see our houses, especially after so many years, even a house they haven’t visited before. They come to see us, to rekindle friendships, to be reminded of why we are friends.
As I get older I am beginning to understand how people just let things go, especially dusty furniture and weedy flower beds. Even people who don’t collect treasure somehow manage to build piles, losing things, finding them again, wondering why they can’t just let go of things they’ll never use, maybe never used at all but instead imagined a need in some distant future. Someone I worked with 20-plus years ago, someone who was a fan of trinkets and other more valuable objets commented to me once, as we talked about our shared passion, that someday they would have to peel back the stacks of newspaper and magazines to get to her after her demise. My 80 year old aunt, raised by a mother who in her later years lived with stacks, has for some time now emulated her mother. Neither of my sisters is a “housekeeper”. Our mother was obsessed with having things dusted, swept and mopped.
I’m beginning to see that simple conversation with someone whose company we enjoy, gathering for a meal and stacking the dirty dishes for later, ending the daylight hours in chairs out in the garden, a water fountain quietly doing its work almost out of earshot, have a lot more value than a dusting cloth or a cotton mop.
We can count our friends on one hand, most likely. I didn’t really have childhood friends. My early playmates were kin. Although I am surely blessed to live near good friends here in Texas, most of those long-time friends I count on one hand live far enough away in one direction or another that getting together happens seldom. Even phones calls and emails can be months apart. Aside from my family, my habit seems to be always a ways from those people who have loved me, even when I didn’t realize it, and maybe even when I didn't think I deserved their love.
In the aftermath of a really nice visit with an old friend, I am feeling a little forlorn today, even though the sun shines and the promise of spring is evident everywhere. Clearing the grass and early spring weeds from the front path and the flower bed it borders is only begun. The product of my efforts from two days ago litters the area. The shovel stands planted in the ground, handy, but I’m not in the mood for weeding today, even though the weather is perfect. For someone who generally enjoys the solitary act of digging in the dirt, I don’t feel like being alone today, even though gardening is therapeutic for me. I can't get going. I’ve sipped the nectar of old friendship, and I need to rest for awhile.
The Nectar of Friendship—Normangee, Texas (March 14, 2008)
R. Harold Hollis
Although my house is out of control these days, I did have a loose game plan for getting it somewhat in order for this visit, but I put off pulling it off until the day of his arrival. Sheets had to be laundered, the vacuum run over the carpet upstairs, the downstairs floors swept and mopped, front door glass cleaned, sidewalk swept, and things that I am routinely allowing to collect where they are deposited because frankly I’ve run out of room and out of motivation had to be organized at least a little. The sense of orderliness that has always governed my life to a good degree has been violated, by me, so lately I soothe my conscience with assurances that I am in the process of selling down my stuff. It will be a long process, I fear. No, I don’t fear it, I just don’t like the way this reality feels, but I’m trying to own it and not let it own me.
I got my house sort of in order for this visit. Today I am reminding myself that those who care about us don’t come to see our houses, especially after so many years, even a house they haven’t visited before. They come to see us, to rekindle friendships, to be reminded of why we are friends.
As I get older I am beginning to understand how people just let things go, especially dusty furniture and weedy flower beds. Even people who don’t collect treasure somehow manage to build piles, losing things, finding them again, wondering why they can’t just let go of things they’ll never use, maybe never used at all but instead imagined a need in some distant future. Someone I worked with 20-plus years ago, someone who was a fan of trinkets and other more valuable objets commented to me once, as we talked about our shared passion, that someday they would have to peel back the stacks of newspaper and magazines to get to her after her demise. My 80 year old aunt, raised by a mother who in her later years lived with stacks, has for some time now emulated her mother. Neither of my sisters is a “housekeeper”. Our mother was obsessed with having things dusted, swept and mopped.
I’m beginning to see that simple conversation with someone whose company we enjoy, gathering for a meal and stacking the dirty dishes for later, ending the daylight hours in chairs out in the garden, a water fountain quietly doing its work almost out of earshot, have a lot more value than a dusting cloth or a cotton mop.
We can count our friends on one hand, most likely. I didn’t really have childhood friends. My early playmates were kin. Although I am surely blessed to live near good friends here in Texas, most of those long-time friends I count on one hand live far enough away in one direction or another that getting together happens seldom. Even phones calls and emails can be months apart. Aside from my family, my habit seems to be always a ways from those people who have loved me, even when I didn’t realize it, and maybe even when I didn't think I deserved their love.
In the aftermath of a really nice visit with an old friend, I am feeling a little forlorn today, even though the sun shines and the promise of spring is evident everywhere. Clearing the grass and early spring weeds from the front path and the flower bed it borders is only begun. The product of my efforts from two days ago litters the area. The shovel stands planted in the ground, handy, but I’m not in the mood for weeding today, even though the weather is perfect. For someone who generally enjoys the solitary act of digging in the dirt, I don’t feel like being alone today, even though gardening is therapeutic for me. I can't get going. I’ve sipped the nectar of old friendship, and I need to rest for awhile.
The Nectar of Friendship—Normangee, Texas (March 14, 2008)
R. Harold Hollis
2 comments:
A nice surprise this morning to find that you have posted again;
As I sit here in my studio surrounded by my various projects in different stages of completion, stacks of fashion magazines that I can't part with, or volumes of books I'll never read again, I write this:
At the end of my life, I hope I am remembered for the person I was, not judged by the cleanliness of my house!
I, too, am getting to the point where I am saying "what exactally is the point...of all this STUFF?"
I so desperately want to purge, however, somehting keeps me from it - I know I'd feel "lighter" and I'd certainly have more room- but for what? Will I start all over again? I feel like renting one of those construction dumpsters and tossing it all away - then I think, well maybe I could garage-sale this...or I should give it away..then I just resign myself to the chair to brood about it...
Oh well, such is life. Nice to know I am not alone..thanks!
Colleen
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