Lady's Latest Article.....appears 1/26/08 in the Abilene Reporter

Long overdue closet cleaning unearths delightful memories

I quit making New Year's resolutions years ago; they were always the same. Get in shape. Get organized. I never did either.
When my husband said Twiggy was too skinny, and a friend observed the cemetery was all about organization, that was enough for me!
Now, as friends are buying shelving and plastic tubs for organizing and/or sweating at the gym while starving, I'm reading, drinking cokes and eating bon-bons. The perfect solutions for January blahs.
Cleaning out "the closet" had nothing to do with resolutions but everything to do with indignation and, I admit, curiosity.
A son used the closet once as "show-and-tell" in a science class: "The black hole is like our closet; stuff disappears in it and you never see it again." He showed nothing and told everything!
"How about the closet, Mom?" my daughter questioned when I complained of a slight unidentified smell.
"Even paper can stink when closed up for a long while."
Smart aleck kids!
"What's in there, anyway?" my husband asked.
"Stuff. Important stuff," I defended.
"Like what?"
I sort of knew but couldn't be specific.
Determined to have a "show-and-tell" of my own and get to the bottom of it, so to speak, I opened the closet door.
The top and more recent layers were drudgery -- what to throw away, what to keep and how to file it. Mostly, I tossed it in the trash.
Working down, layers became more fascinating. I was reliving the past. With pictures. And were there ever pictures! Some people I didn't know or no longer recognized -- bell bottom pants, bee-hive hairdos, plaid polyester coats, and kids. They could have been us and ours.
The Bible our son received at graduation from kindergarten. The receipt we needed for our taxes in 1992. A sweater two sizes ago. A $50 mail-in rebate for the 8-year-old TV. Someone's wedding present. Unfinished needlework.
That little closet held layers of my family's life.
Never mind why they were there, unorganized. I had known they were worth keeping and put them there until I found the right place. Maybe the closet was the right place.
I'm glad clearing the closet wasn't due to a "resolution." I would've been so intent on arrival,
I'd have missed the trip. And was it ever a trip!
Propped against the closet door I laughed, cried, remembered and rearranged the stacks. The farther down I got, the less I threw away.
Tucked in the middle lay a precious memory, waiting to be resumed. A blue spiral notebook that a friend and I agreed to write in and mail to one another when she moved to Arizona by way of El Paso.
Between us, we had nine kids and a sweet friendship. The notebook would be met with great anticipation when it arrived in my mailbox. I'd hide somewhere, skim over it quickly, then read it slowly, savoring each word.
Life got more complicated. My friend and I lost touch. Our kids are grown, and we both have grandchildren. I wondered if she remembered the notebook. Because I have it, I guess I'm the one who dropped the pen.
Perhaps I'll make a New Year's resolution after all: Don't be so busy tending to the necessary that essentials are ignored. Essentials like relationships.
With the closet half finished, I grabbed a diet Coke, a couple of bon-bons and settled in with the blue notebook to write my friend, Mackey, the one who went to Arizona by way of El Paso.
Will she ever be surprised!
Betty Davis is a freelance writer in Abilene and regular columnist. She is a former Abilene public school board president.