I’m referring to cleaning out closets and cabinets and chests of drawers when that dreaded reality of having to move hits.  For me it’s been about every ten years.  The way I see it, this next one (mid-March) requires a mammoth cleansing.  Then there will be one final move to the end of the line domicile.  But this upcoming move has complications, like moving out of a four story house into a (swanky) penthouse smack dab in the middle of Philadelphia.  Twentieth floor. Ten foot ceilings. Walls of windows.  Spectacular views.  About 1/3 of the square footage I currently fill.  So thankfully I’m not sentimental.  I don’t form attachments to things.  It’s rare I even form attachments to people.

Oh but your mother’s crewel embroidery.  She put so much love into everything she did.

While that may be true, she’s dead.  Granted she put a lot of effort into these things and I did have room to hold onto them. But while a few of them made the cut and were actually hung on a wall, most are just yellowed pieces of canvas with a bucket of tulips.  This is gonna be the memory of my mother? That’s not fair to her.  While the effort in making these things was there, you can’t really reminisce about effort.

As far as honoring my mother?  The woman had me walk to the town’s drugstore with a note instructing the pharmacist to fork over refills of her Phenobarbital and Valium.  I was a nine year old drug mule. That’s a memory worth holding onto.  

Now a wedding picture. Maybe, provided the marriage stuck. An antique porcelain foot bath … I’m in.  Not my feet of course. While people once used these things to bathe their feet, the thought of that’s disgusting. They’re for show.  Take your dirty dogs to the shower with a scrub brush.  Feet = gross.

So now that I’ve drawn a solid line on what constitutes a memory and what doesn’t, sh*t is flying outta here like frisbees.  Baby pictures?  I’m 65.  I don’t even know who that person is in the frame and it’s supposedly me.  It’s likely I’ve got a squished number two underneath me while I smile away.  Well in twenty years, I can get a more updated self portrait of me in a pile of poop. I’ll wait and frame that.

Then there’s my mother’s full length Canadian Beaver coat with matching headband from Bergdorf Goodman.  It’s been a fun and breathtaking shocker when I waltz into a cocktail party with that thing on.  But the schtick is getting old and who knew you were supposed to store these things in a cool environment.  Long story short, its smell is starting to precede my entrance, thus ruining the shock value.  

That’s my friend Erin in the picture.  What says loser more than a beautiful woman in a schtanky Canadian Beaver Coat holding a second place plaque?  I’m keeping the plaque as it holds a great memory, can’t keep Erin since she’s married … and the fate of the coat?  I found a woman in Oregon that turns them into blankets.

A bit creepy but I can’t throw a beaver’s hide into the garbage.  S/he put a lot of effort into that.