Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-07-27 - 10:28 a.m.

Dances with Jackdaws

You know, I am somewhat like a jaybird, in my acquisition - picking up anything shiny, anything that strikes my fancy, with no more thought than "ooh, pretty." Imagine a jaybird with a three-bedroom home and the ability to go to garage sales. That would be me.

Sometimes I'm resentful and disgusted with myself, looking around at my junk. Al least I am when forced to move, or whenever the refrigerator explodes and I have to re-do a large portion of my house. What WAS I thinking? Or not thinking? Why do I have so many vases? I mean, there's "enough vases", which would probably be two or maybe even three, and then there's "the number of vases women tend to keep around the house", which might be six or even eight, and then there's "Kath's vase collection", to which which I'm not even confessing. And it's not like I LIKE them all, I just HAVE them, and I don't even know WHY I have them. How about the ceramic one that is made in the shape of an Easter egg with the top cracked off? How about that? I own that. (Actually, I know why I own that, my father brought me flowers in it one Easter many years ago, so it comes under the heading of gifts which I can't throw away even though I will never ever put flowers in it again and I am depriving some other Goodwill shopper with very different tastes of the high that you get when you find the PERFECT THING for a quarter.)

So what about the egg vase? It could go. It's not like that is the only reminder of my father that I have in this house. It was in a high cabinet, not something I even knew I had kept. It is neither beautiful (like all those random bowls of river rocks or the mismatched china cups I have all over), nor useful (not like that mini-waffle maker or the breadmaker that I lost the middle thingy for.) But now it's blackened - can I give it to Goodwill blackened? I can't do that, can I? Then I would be tacky, and if I'm that tacky maybe I'm going to NEED a cracked-egg vase.

The things that broke are easier. They were just broken, glass ready to recycle. And while it wasn't the RIGHT things that got broken - my souvenir coffee cup from the writer's weekend, and the blue glass casserole with the lid that I use a lot come to mind - at least I didn't have to make any decisions about those things. Crazy glue didn't even cross my mind. It's the things that are damaged but salvageable, and then the things that are not damaged but probably shouldn't have been salvaged in the first place.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop at the kitchen, either. The people who will put the linoleum in tell me they need not only the area getting new linoleum but SIX FEET clearance on the other side, too. We're talking kitchen and dining room and out into the LIVING ROOM here. We're talking boxing and moving my DESK, all my sewing, my hutch (the piece of furniture that by definition houses only things I can't justify owning - come on, a hutch?) the - gulp - "entertainment center" - there's a ghastly term - several computers, end tables, coat rack, just an unconscionable amount of furniture all filled with jaybird junk. Hey, the set of red stick candles that are all melted and falling over? I NEED those, I won a contest for the Ugliest Candles at a candle party with those, I won...yeah...more candles.

(I unearthed this unfinished essay while scouting around the hard drive looking for something else entirely. It was written a while ago, and while it's still accurate, I had a friend come and help me do some cleaning. Didn't need so much cleaning help, although he did tons, but someone to hold things up and say, "And what is THIS?" There's something humbling about being forced to say aloud and in front of someone, "That's an old wok lid which I plan to turn into a windchime someday." The charity pile grew so high I thought I might just ask Goodwill to bring THEIR stuff over HERE, it would be easier. And I have hauled a lot of it out, too, without even rummaging through it and taking back items I might someday turn into wind chimes. I really didn't. Well, that one silk-covered box, okay, big deal.)

Jaybird. I didn't finish this, just stuffed it away on the hard drive with all the other bits of straw and tinsel and shiny buttons, and flew off to other interests. If hard drives wanted dusting, I'd be in trouble.

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