Making Room

I’m cleaning out my daughter’s room, the parade of thirty years since she came to me in a dream; strawberry blond and blue-eyed in a largely brunette world.

It’s taken me ten years to come around to more than dusting.

~

Clothes in the closet still smell faintly of our goats, the local stable, Scotland by the North Sea, and Zambian braziers.

A high school science project leans against the back corner, dowel rod and pencil salvageable.

I roll up the wiring and soldered contacts and guiltily discard them.

It was a water sensor. I hope it doesn’t end up in the ocean.

Riding boots with broken zippers, down-at-the-heel shoes, and the remnants of a Halloween costume crowd the floor.

I think the boots can be repaired.

~

A long train of storage boxes waits resolutely in the hallway, beginning just outside her bedroom door.

‘Casual Clothing and Sports Uniforms.’

‘Skirts Too Short to Wear in Africa.’

‘Winter Sweaters.’

Each box is a little float with its proper theme written in front, prepared in expectation of its turn in the procession down the stairs.

~

A desk loaded with an array of elementary school projects on Sweden,

Rocks picked up in distant places,

The odd photo escaped from its chronology in the album.

Journals she’s kept since middle school. I haven’t read them.

College information packets are thirteen years old. The accompanying acceptance and rejection letters are no longer relevant.

A binder she carried through customs for four years,

Expired passports full of stamps and a student visa,

Wedding invitations from friends.

~

I find a complete box of the history of technology and put it aside, slightly puzzled about the correct way to handle its demise.

Each item represents a particular year or two of the world’s discarded progress.

~

A box for the baby blankets of my own memories.

The sparkly pink glitter crown has already been stored with childhood toys too full of memory to donate.

~

I debate with the rows of figurines composed of ballet dancers and rabbits for some time before they win the argument to continue in silent columns for the time being.

~

The book shelf, lined with old favorites and often supplied with new ones on periodic visits to our home is all that remains.

~

By next week I should be back to dusting.

The caravan will be in storage for a yet-to-be-determined future or in the trash cans lined up by the side of the road awaiting a final salute.

****

Thanks for reading my words. You can find more of them under my name; poems, some short stories, and articles on various topics.