Attic clutter

From time to time a person just needs to pause and assess the content and volume of accumulated stuff. The alternative- potential suffocation by massive clutter- is not pretty.

The stalls that once housed horses at the barn have become a favorite resting place for any and everybody’s stuff. Doggone it; I believed them when they declared it was only temporary.
But, I have no one to blame but myself for the condition of the nooks and crannies in my own house, especially the walk-up attic. It seems over time a lot of things have walked up but never, ever back down.

Keeping your 30- year- old child’s first outfit and your brothers’ scrapbooks, artwork and rock collection for sentimentality is somewhat understandable. Hey, you never know when they might visit and expect to find such treasures. Then, there are the hundreds of books my father collected. The most precious now line the library bookshelves and the rest are boxed and loaded with varmint deterrent.

But what about the 50 year old bank records that belonged to my grandfather? They are on the top of the list for termination, just after the dress I made in 1965. It has been a constant reminder that I should never attempt to sew anything!

Most humans have a place like this: an attic, a garage, or a spare bedroom. But an attic is the best. Unlike the garage, people don’t go to or even pass by the attic on a regular basis. Things get put in the attic and forgotten. Add to this recipe for mayhem a house that is very old, has been home to generations of the same family; the result is a combination of treasure trove and colossal mess.

Our attic isn’t finished but it does have a floor and a couple of windows that do not open. It lies under a gable roof and the sloping sides are not inviting to folks over about four and a half feet.
It boasts no heat or cooling system and in the summer it is unbearably hot and full of flies joined by a few wasps. Noises emanating from the attic during the winter months would indicate the residence of a few other creatures, be they squirrels or some less desirable inhabitant.

Lest you decide our attic has been little more than a familial effort at waste management, let me assure you the description above does not constitute the sum total of my memories.

Puppet shows, train sets, dolls, card games, chests full of dress-up clothes and a life-time supply of National Geographic magazines provided endless hours of entertainment and adventure for a family of five children.

A few times the attic even served as sleeping quarters when house overflowed with extra company. It was always the boys that got to sleep in the attic; I could never understand why they got to do all the fun stuff.

Forget play space now, there just isn’t any room. Good grief, even the broken items that could not be repaired went back to the attic!

Often I have entertained the idea that I have simply lost my mind. Why else would I keep a cheap broken telescope. I struggle with a plausible explanation. Maybe there is some kind of bizarre security in the knowledge that these disabled objects of my past still exist. It is really hard to let go and move on.

But then again, if my mother had owned that blender so neatly boxed and well beyond repair, she would have tossed it long ago and saved her pennies for a functional one.

It is monster-under-the-bed scary to rid our space of trappings that no longer function, but imagine the room soon to be available for new ideas and new stuff.

Until next time, be well.