Over the last year or more — since before the pandemic, really — an accretion of unwanted stuff has built up in the small space between the piano and the kitchen door: lots of books from the last time I Konmari-ed my library, a stack of padded UPS envelopes that had been used as padding in a gift package, cardboard boxes in which to put those books, and other stuff. It’s almost all gone now, so three cheers for “Slow and steady wins the race.”
What took up most of my time was an orange (p)leather magazine basket that had more in it than I thought. Now almost everyone would have said to me “Robert, just throw it all out! You won’t need any of that.” And thank goodness they weren’t here to tell me that, ‘cause the original copy of my mortgage was in there, and who knows when that might come in handy. But what I don’t understand is what some 1959 correspondence relating to my parents’ mortgage was doing in there. Or why I even have it in the first place.
I expected to find a year or two’s worth of copies of a local magazine a friend used to edit and some theatre programs. And they were there. In addition, a number of other items brought as far back as 40 years, including:
A small sheaf of birthday cards from my 25th birthday in 2003. ;-)
Lots of real estate docs related to my move to JP the same year.
Family reunion registration forms from 2009 and 2011.
Evidence of every workplace I’d been in since 1986.
Two memorial service programs for dear friends from different parts of my life.
Alumni board materials from 2006.
The menu from my 2011 Christmas luncheon in français de la garbage.
The January 1994 issue of Tech Review in which my photograph appears in coverage of the Ig Nobel Prizes (which were then at MIT and on the Board of Governers of which I served).
Drawings made specially for me by Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged when she was little.
A map of the Estate of Marie Antoinette from my 2008 visit to Versailles.
A very important high school casting notice.
Travel postcards from three different friends.
Several letters from Mother, including one 1986 note on a Postit: “On the television, a chiropractor: ‘Why live with pain?’ Bill chimed in: ‘Because I’m married to her!’”
Photocopied newspaper obituaries of a couple family members.
A pink plastic ring made to look like a gemstone.
Needless to say, this has been absorbing if not always pleasurable; in mining one can bring up diamonds, coal, and . . . something less solid and more unpleasant, all at the same time. And I know I’ll find more of these time capsules as my journey continues, and will enjoy them all.