First of October

I entitled this posting with the date, because it seems impossible that 9/12ths, ie 3/4ths, of this year should have raced past already.

I am trying to clear out my house. It is hard to give away personal items, or throw them way, in essence. And one tends to love ones possessions.  Not because of their monetary "value."  Because they are things chosen for one by loved ones, or chosen by oneself, which makes them expressions of personality and gives them a life of their own.

But it has finally gotten through to me that I will never get over the regret of having to leave these things until they are actually gone from me.  I will then have a measure of freedom that I cannot really appreciate now. But when I have that freedom, I think I shall appreciate it indeed.  Freedom  from possessions, a valuable status.

Patrician is horrified when I tell her that I have plans to sell my grand piano.  She'd never do such a thing, which is why she lives in her same house with her same stuff and same family. Good for her. I think another route is prescribed for me. I hardly play the piano any more, and a couple of hours once a week playing duets hardly justifies living around a huge bulky instrument like mine.

In the meantime, it is anguish to go through things, to contemplate fragments of a life from long ago, to sort out and set aside the writings and drawings of children, to do the same for my own writings and drawings when I myself was a child compared to now.  But life has to keep regenerating, and we have to get rid of the dead leaves in order that the clear springs of living water might flow again.

It's tiring to do this sort of grubbing work: sorting and tossing and laying aside.   It hurts sometimes too, not just when fragments of writing from Gregory come up, but when the other things from the other two boys appear out of the past to rend the heart with joy and pain and remembrance.  For those little boys are gone too now, gone as far away as they could be.  I set aside things for them, to show to their families of today and of the future, but I don't know why.  My mother gave me a packet of things I made and I am not sure I know where it is. 

I was going to write about cookery today, about food, but this little essay came out of nowhere as a result of my constant burrowing over the last few weeks. Gracious!  Tomorrow I will go back to what I intended to write about when I started today. YAZZYBEL