Chapter 14
I’ll tell you true, Ruthie, this is a crowded house.
Long about in my mid-seventies, I saw it was happening that my things were beginning to own me rather than the other way around.
So many things! Seems like a lot of people begin at some point to get concerned about that, mostly women, as they are the more responsible of the species, let’s put the cards on the table, it’s usually the women doing most of the organizing and caretaking and the decision-making.
Lord, sometimes it seemed like men belonged to a cub scout troop where we women were ever the den mothers.
But this sorting-out business. It didn’t seem like any of us ever got too far, seemed like almost always things simply got left to the children.
I once thought, I’m going to hire someone to help me and she doesn’t even have to help me.
She can just stand by me and make some nice comments on things every now and then and encourage me to toss the things I just don’t need anymore nor have I needed them for a long time.
But what if my imaginary helper and I agreed that I do NOT need these skeins of yarn I’ve had for nigh onto sixty years and then it turns out you would have loved them?
I had another idea once for getting rid of things, which was to put a table out on my sidewalk with a sign: FREE IF YOU LOVE IT AND WILL TAKE CARE OF IT.
Like everything on the table was a kitten when in fact it might be a screen to prevent splatters when you fry things, or a half-slip I never did wear, or a pencil sharpener, who can’t use a pencil sharpener if they don’t have one?
I like the old-fashioned wall-mounted kind we used to have in school.
I got to be the pencil-sharpener emptier and I looked upon it as quite an honor.
Each day I would march to the trash can by the teacher’s desk and empty that pencil sharpener of its fragrant shavings, they smelled like lead and cedar and to this day I love that smell.
So many things. I got some love letters in a cardboard box from Terrence.
We always agreed, Terrence and I, that whoever outlasted the other would destroy those letters.
I guess we thought we might be embarrassed by the content but let me tell you something, we were embarrassed by things like this: “I not only love you, I need you.” Now what is embarrassing about that when nowadays people get on those computers and you can see them stark naked.
And you don’t even know them, nor they you, they are just parading around naked, Look at me, look at me.
I heard they show everything and sometimes they do a lot more than just parade around.
I don’t like to think of people doing that.
I guess I’m more modest than that. I used to fuss if my bra strap showed and whoever I was with didn’t tell me.
Same as food on your face, you know, you might be embarrassed if someone tells you that you got a big blob of mayonnaise at the corner of your mouth, but then you are grateful no one else will see it.
I used to know a man a few years back, he was even older than I, and he wore his t-shirts inside out.
I one time said, Say did you know your t-shirt is inside out?
I said it soft, I didn’t want to embarrass him.
He said yes he did know. Oh, I said, and I pondered his flat response.
Then I said, Why? He said I don’t like seams. I said, Well, you know people might think you wore it inside out by accident, and he stopped walking and turned to look me full in the face to say, I never did care about WHAT people thought of me.
I never did feel like I owed all these EXPLANATIONS other people feel they need to offer all the time.
Well, you are free, then, I said, with a little spark of admiration, and he said, Yes I am.
And listen to this, Ruthie, didn’t I see some teenaged boys a few days later got THEIR t-shirts turned inside out like it was a fashion statement, which I guess to them it was.
Oh, those boys were riding along fast down the middle of the street, and one would commence to punch another one, and soon they were all punching and laughing, seemed like their heads were full of fun.
And I’ll bet they were thinking they would live forever, don’t we all think that.
Why, I’m almost thinking that now, even, that even though death sure enough has his Florence Greene assignment, he will pass me by and I will have some more time for my new friends and for me and Champ just setting out on the porch, I do love that dog.
I might have had a dog after Terrence died.
Although getting a dog in old age reminds me of my friend Mary Curtin who had to go to the hospital right quick with a heart attack.
I got to see her just before she died and she was so concerned about her dog and who would feed him that night.
I knew her dog, Woodson was his name, he was one of those black and white dogs had what looked like freckles on his nose and a saddle patch on his back.
I said I would feed him and I would keep him too but I didn’t.
I found someone else to do it. I still feel bad about that, but I couldn’t face what if I took him and then I had to leave him, too.
About a week after I brought him home, I was out walking him, and I passed by a young family the next block over.
They were on their lawn, the children playing croquet, a lovely game you hardly ever see played anymore, but the children came up to admire him and I all of a sudden got an idea and I asked would they like to have him, he was old but he was right healthy, nothing wrong with him, and he ate just plain old regular dog food.
Those children’s eyes grew wide as hibiscus blossoms and they started yelling about how this lady is giving this dog away, can we have him, can we pleeeeeeease?
??? The parents came over and gave old Woodson the once-over and said, Well why not.
I handed them the leash and I walked away.
I did look back once and that dog had his back to me and was wagging his tail something fierce so I thought, Okay then.
He will have a better home. I lied to my friend Mary Curtin, but he will have a better home.
I got back to my house and picked up the dishes I had used to feed Woodson and I cleaned them out and I felt the little burn of tears that wanted to come but I would not let them.
I kept thinking, He has a better home, and I knew it was true, yet my sorrow made me feel like something had come along and scooped something out of me.
I guess it was that special love you can have for animals and I knew it wasn’t coming back anytime soon and indeed it never did come back at all.
But I did keep Woodson’s dishes. They are light blue bowls with white insides and they are way at the back of my bottom cupboard next to the stove. I didn’t want to come across them but I just couldn’t throw them away. However briefly, he’d been my dog.