What’s in the attic?
Last time here I wrote about cleaning out my clothes closets and how cleansing and cathartic it can be for your soul. What a great way to feel less weighed down and free!
I spent much of my life acquiring collectibles, knickknacks and ridiculous souvenirs from travels such as key chains, match books and shot glasses. Add in a trove of teddy bears, angel ornaments (my sorority mascot) and an array of snowmen decorations and you have lots of stuff that warms your heart and makes you smile … and that you will have to get rid of someday.
There are some people who can’t bring themselves to get rid of anything. One of our good friends is dealing with this. She actually hired a home organizer to come clean out their garage, only to have her husband angrily greet the woman and tell her to leave without touching any of his things.
I am certainly not that person, as I’m in the process of what I jokingly say is “divesting myself of all worldly goods.” Well, that is, except for my skis and scuba equipment, golf clubs, all of my remaining clothes and way too many photo albums and pictures. But everything else can go.
That brings me to the final frontier of my stem to stern, top to bottom cleanout and reorganization of our house. This process started when I moved home more than a dozen years ago, merged my furniture with my parents’ stuff, gradually gave away their clothes after they had passed and now am looking through nooks and crannies to see what may be hidden there.
We tackled the main attic space last fall when it cooled off but before it got too cold. That took an entire day and left us with loads of goods to donate, ranging from vintage suitcases to my childhood highchair. Now, I stood staring at the opening to the crawl space above our sun porch. Who knows what my dad stashed up there? I climbed the ladder and tried to push open the heavy wooden cover. It wouldn’t budge. Then I realized it had been painted shut with the most recent touchup. I grabbed a box cutter, screwdriver and hammer and gradually chiseled my way around the square cutout. Finally, I gave it a whack with a rubber mallet, and it gave way.
I moved the cover to the side, grabbed a flashlight and poked my head up inside like a meerkat peering out of his den. What did I find? Nothing! Well, not absolutely nothing, but – much to my delight – there was only an ancient beach chair, an old lawn fertilizer spreader and a couple of metal poles.
I smiled, put the cover back in place, wiped off my grimy fingerprints and climbed down the ladder, content in knowing that I didn’t have hours of another cleanout ahead of me!
Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.