Editing Memories


We are moving into the, as yet unsecured, RV.  So, we definitely need to pare down our belongings.  And, we have ALOT of belongings.  Both of us collect; not like stamps or coins, but we collect stuff.  Dave gathers things to use in art making.  I gather things for crafting/art making.  Much of it is non-traditional, all of it takes up a great deal of space.  I find as I go through my boxes, boxes, incidently, that may not have been opened since we packed up our last house seven years ago, that I have memories tucked away in those boxes.  Memories that have been jogged as I search through the layers of pens, papers, toys I'll never again play with and for which I have no recipient if I wanted to give them away, I find keepsakes that I can't bear to part with.  Today I found a Doan's Pill canister with a slit in the top that I used to store game markers.  Aside from the fact that they don't make Doan's Pills anymore, I keep it because my grandmother gave me the canister.  My grandmother died 30 years ago.  Other memories I toss away.  A photo album of me and an ex-boyfriend.  I pull out a few pictures of me, but I don't need this anymore; I didn't even remember it existed.  I also find a drawing, done by my elementary school art teacher.  It's in chalk, on a long sheet of black construction paper.  It's Scrooge and two waifish looking children.  For the past 6 months or so, I've thought about this drawing, wondering what happened to it.  I found it a couple of days ago, in our storage locker, rolled in a mailing tube with posters from work - memories of exhibits I have worked on.  They now live in the landfill with many other edited memories and I wonder if someone will find them in a few hundred years, when they do a dig at the landfill to see what our society was like.