Time

The cooperation I got from the clouds was greatly appreciated. It poured on the drive to Morristown where I planned to spend a few hours rooting around my storage unit. It stopped raining and I was able to place a few things outside of the unit while I consolidated boxes that were half full, a result of five years of pilfering and hording items. It gave me a chance to donate some more clothes to Good Will and toss a few things in the dump, a full leaf-size bag of junk. I packed three boxes of books thinking I’ll ship them off to Micronesia to some Peace Corps Volunteer, but when I picked the boxes up each weighed a ton. Even book rate, this will be expensive. Since it was Saturday afternoon and every Post Office in East Tennessee closes at noon, I’ll have to wait until June.

Consolidating my crap I discovered that I don’t want to get rid of everything, but don’t want to take it to Hawaii either. Photo albums. Old journals. A diary I kept when Kenai passed away. I wrote it during her last week. A long one of agonizing decisions and ultimately putting her to sleep. That was thirteen years ago. More stuff like this.

There are a bunch of memories in the twenty by ten storage unit. Letters I wrote Mom and Dad when I was in the Army. Mementos from places I have traveled. A puma from Peru. A picture from Chile. A hand painted picture by a fourteen year old boy, a troubled youth named Mike A. A commemorative Time magazine with Princess Diana on the cover. Gear for caving, camping, trekking, kayaking. A rug my grandmother made. A collection of skulls and turtle shells. A few pieces of antique furniture purchased in North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio…places I once lived. A summary of my material life is in the storage unit.

Before heading back to New York, I stopped to say good-bye to David. He apologized for being late the other day. It was so unlike him and more unusual for him not to call. He arrived over an hour later. By then I imagined the worst listening to Knoxville traffic reports. Everything was okay. That was the first time in the twenty two years I have known him to ever be late for anything.

He mentioned that it had been five years since I left Design Management. Five years since I joined the Peace Corps? Come August. I tried to account for the time. Sixteen months here, eight there, another six and then a year and none of it added up. Maybe some day, I’m going to get serious about all this. Before it is over, anyway. Meanwhile, I got to figure out what am I going to do with all these memories in a box.