It's Friday Eve and I'm already contemplating my weekend.
In continuing to do a deep cleanout and organization of my "stuff".... I find that I have more little notes and papers stuck here and there. I did the vast majority of this stuff 2 years ago, but some things made the cut back then, I'm not sure why. I thought I had done such a good job back then and maybe I did considering how much more "stuff" there was here at the time, but now that I've thought about it more and it's been a little while, I have started again as if it has never been done. Amazingly and surprisingly to me, I have let go of much more stuff. I must have had some sort of attachment to these things back then, but find, even in those short couple of years, I no longer do on most of it. I know I told it before, but I am not trying to go minimalist, just reducing to a more reasonable amount and only to those things I actually still use. I am keeping things I only use once in a while though, because I'm not buying them again when I need them and of course holiday things and the such.
As you know I work from home, still punching the clock online and very set hours. When I get breaks or lunch, most of the times I try to do something small that needs to be done, one more decision on things to donate or folding clothes and things like that.
Today on one of those breaks, I gathered all sorts of packing materials into one grocery size reusable bag. I use it to cushion things when I am packing breakables and bits of it seemed to be strown all over. After work I pulled a container over that was not far from my feet to pull out a paper or two and see what it was. There was a note on top of a magazine article that I had kept for some years.
The article was about a woman whose brother was a superintendent of several buildings. One of the tenants was no longer there and her son had left nearly everything she owned. The brother knew his sister liked vintage things and since it was up to him to clean it out at some point, he let her go through it first, assuring her that anything that was left would be thrown out.
It talked about the things she found and her thoughts as she went through this other woman's belongings. She thought about how they might have been chosen and loved and there were so many nice vintage things. During that time, she began to imagine this other woman and how her personality may have been and because of the type of belongings, she pictured her whimsical and sassy and smart and....just a lovely person who surrounded herself with fun vintage collections. Among the other things, there were some letters and notes she kept, just because she thought sentimental things should not just be thrown away. There were a lot more thoughts she wrote about in the article than I am saying here, but you kind of get the picture as her mind conjured up what a wonderful person this other lady must have been.
A couple of years later she mentioned it to her brother about how it had affected her to go through this other women's things after she had passed. To her surprise, the brother told her that the lady had not passed, she was in a nursing home. The person that wrote the article said that it really excited her. She begged and finally got her brother to give her the address of the son. She pictured that she wanted to meet this whimsical fun person, so she wrote the son a letter, explained who she was and some of the thoughts she had as she went through his mother's things and that she'd love to meet her. A little while later, he called her and they talked and she had been very surprised after excitedly telling him some things about her thoughts, when he very kindly told her that to be honest, his mom had always been a little CRA-CRA. He was bemused at her concept of his mother simply by her things. He said though that his mother had dementia and barely knew him or most of the family sometimes, so he thought it might be confusing for her to go around. He then ended by telling her he was glad that his mother's things had made her happy and that she should keep the thoughts of his mother the way she had imagined her.
So today, on top of that article I had a sticky note and I had written "How many times am I on the wrong page? How many times does my brain instantly write it's own story based on my perception of something??"
I think it may be a lot. I frequently don't take things I see the same as other people. Maybe I even assume parts that don't show. I think I am always looking it it as what I would mean if I did the same thing or said the same thing and .... that is not what everyone else necessarily thinks or means.
The silent story where I fill in parts I can't see, according to my world.
That's about it for today. The first and second pieces above are very small collages that I made that included pieces of cardboard a couple of nights ago as I was fiddling around at my art table. The last one is a work in progress. It is nearly 5 feet long and is a piece of brown packing paper from an Amazon package. I tore off about a 5 inch wide strip and collaged it with some of my many scraps. I have done two others before and have shown them in the past. One was very small and a test and then next at least 2 foot long. I haven't added anything else yet to this one but the paper scraps. On the previous ones I added some inks and other marker marks. I will being doing some of that to this one too along the way. I know, who but someone artsy would have that hanging around on the wall...LOL... but I like it and it's unusualness.
Time to ramble to the kitchen and see what I can scare up for supper. I wonder why you have to scare up food, unless of course you are out hunting. ha
Hope you've had a good week and that you have fun plans for the upcoming weekend.
