Throwing Away My Life, A reflection while cleaning the garage. Options

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Throwing Away My Life

I've been sorting out my pack rat horde,
gotten rid of all the junk accumulated
over thirty some odd years.

Bits of electronics; nuts and bolts;
nails and screws; assorted lengths and types of wood.
Wires, solder, strings and rubber bands.

They have no memories, no special place in my heart,
they're just things for use with ideas I had once upon a time.

A mans version of scraps of cloth; five skeins of yarn,
all different colors; assorted needles and pins;
a half used spool of thread.

Things we say we will find a way to use, but never do.
Sometimes these are harder to part with than dreams themselves.

25 Oct, 2009
© Steve Pray

[Thoth]

Dear Steve,

I can imagine this, sad - very sad.

I have two and a half garages to go through soon! I'm not relishing the idea.

I particularly liked the closure as it made me think. The materials collected for an idea to ripen are as hard to discard as the idea itself. Yes indeed, how many shelved dreams reside unfulfilled in garages throughout the world? would any have made a difference?

Thank you for posing the provoking questions. With your permission, I think I just may pursue this issue a little further!

Best regards,

Wally

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Wally, thank you for reading and I am glad of your wonderful insight. You are more than welcome to pursue the idea, this was ever so much more than an introspective. I remember very vividly having to go to my parents house and pick through the memory junk collected during their lives. It is indeed a very sad thing to do or to have to do, throwing away someone's treasures. So I have decided to do my own as best I can, so my family doesn't have that to face, amongst all the other things. It seems to be an insurmountable job, but I have at least started.

There are hundreds of garage sales every day, if you just stop by a few with the garage doors open, you can often get an idea of the shelved dreams they have.

Thanks again Wally,

Steve

[Sekhmet]

Hi Steve - this poem brought tears to my eyes.
'What might have been.' Is always an emotive subject - but I'll bet most of what you have cleared away was left over from the things you did actually make. You obviously enjoyed your workshop - and your family enjoyed, and benefited from the results.
Having had to sort through the effects of both my own and my husbands widowed mothers' homes - I know so well that it is the, 'small, unconsidered trifles' that are the most moving. I have a large wicker box, the size of a largish chest, filled with wools and materials for unknitted sweaters, unmade patchwork quilts and half finished baby clothes.
My dear husband has never knowingly thrown away anything - a squeezed out tube of toothpaste will remain in his tooth mug for weeks, he just can't bear to part with it - until I give in, and throw it out.
Our French home has a large, earth-floored cellar - and it is full, almost to the ceiling, of things that, 'might come in handy one day.' Unlike you, there is no danger of my husband ever sorting it out. So well done you!
Hugs, Leo

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Leo, I am a bit sorry it made you cry, but it made me cry too while writing it. My wife hase these huge plastic tubs full of remnants that she is going to make one day, and every time she goes to work she brings something else home. She works at Wal- Mart in the fabric dept. a bad place for her to be day in and out with all that stuff available. When my mom died we threw out hundreds of patterns she had bought and saved over the years, no one wanted them, they were all for younger children. I tried to learn how to knit, made a very bad scarf, never could crochet or sew, I even tried one of those plastic sewing kits that you can buy to make houses and mottos etc, didn't do that very well...lol. So (Sew) I leave it all to her, after all its only money. And you surely can't take that with you.

Steve

[Alan]

Dear Steve,

Your last couplet is indeed a killer !

Perhaps I was lucky when clearing my mother's annex - most stuff was well gone, furniture and everything got binned, barring a box or two which I let my daughter sort through, and one oak sideboard, which is now proudly in my study. There is also a huge painting, still on the wall over there, which I intend to drag through to my mantle if I ever get round to it.

Love
Alan

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Alan, I have one of those if I can ever find it to hang on my wall, it is circular made of porcelain and has that word in very bold print:

Tuit

So it is a round tuit, comes in handy.

Steve

[Guest_Don Schaeffer_*]

Your last two lines are a zinger. That takes the whole poem and wraps it in a nice bow. The rest of the piece seems to be waiting for the conclusion.

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Don, Thank you for the kind words and for your reading.
Nice to see a face attached to the name.

Steve