Yard Sale

In my neck of the woods, hosting and/or attending a yard sale is a mix of art and contact sports.  Let me explain.

It's 6:00 a.m.  It's that time in the morning when the mist makes everything cold while promising a roasting hot day.  We are laying out my mother's life-or rather her 'stuff' across the driveway and the neighbors lawn for a yard sale. 

The hundreds of gifts she received over the years was artfully displayed on card tables.   Christmas stuff over here.  57+ coffee mugs over there.

Every curtain and piece of linen our family had since before I was born was laid out on tarps or organized in colorfully labelled boxes.

The 20 or so glass boxes for holding the piles of doo-dads from around her house were lined up.  Beside the doo-dads was the mountain of stationary she never opened or used.

Embroidery, crochet, and sewing 'notions' of which I have no notion, were set out.  Some lady bought the white sewing box, not because she sewed, rather she worked at the company that designed and made the boxes in the '60s.

By 6:30 the boys had wrangled the 10 ton furniture into a pseudo display on the corner of the street.  By 6:32 "Crazy Legs" was making an offer on most of the furniture. 

By 6:33 some lady was riffling through the jewelry.  She told me what she was paying for some wooden eggs.  I didn't even look at the price, she was just too scary to contend with.

By 8:00 a.m. we had raked in $132.  Yep.  $132.  Did I mention the sale wasn't supposed to start UNTIL 8:00 a.m.  Oy.

The day was marked by stretches of boredom followed by long minutes of people wheeling and dealing on stuff we didn't want and they didn't really need.  By 2:00 we sold everything at 'half off' the already unbelievably low price of-50 cents.

We packed what was left, about 1/3 of what was laid out, and carted it to Goodwill.  We left with a receipt indicating we had given 6 bags of clothes, 7 pieces of furniture and 14 bags of home goods. 

Two truck loads of stuff, a life of 62 years and all we were left with was a receipt. 

Today, sunburned and exhausted, we are moving slow.  Only the kids are in their normal speed, buzzing around us.  We have a yard sale hangover.


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The Finish Line

My head is pounding.  I am exhausted.  My husband is a shell of a man from being virtually a single Mr. Mom for the past two weeks.  But wait.  What is this I see?  Can it be?  Is it true?

IT'S THE FINISH LINE!

I completed the big proposal thingy I was working on.  The late nights, the unending research, is over!

Now what?  Time for a little introspection.

There was a time in my life when I operated at this tempo every day.  When every moment of every minute had a purpose.  If I wasn't going here, I was coming from there.  Picking up and dropping off -with work sandwiched in between.  So many of my earlier videos of my first born include shots of an exhausted me, late in the night, still in my work clothes.  My life was squeezed out in droplets like the wringing of a sponge.  How did I ever do it?

I didn't really.  I didn't with any sense of purpose or connection.  I just did.  I just did a lot.

I still do a lot.  A lot less.  Does it mean I am lazier? Some days.  Less focused or productive? Sometimes.  Less good or whole or validated? Never.

There is an aspect to my temperament that is never quite satisfied.  I am always looking for the new challenge.  The new thing.  Perhaps that's one reason why mothering fascinates me.  Everyday and in every way it's a challenge and new.

Once the choleric dissatisfaction formed an alliance with my self image and voted my peace right off the island!  My identity was wrapped up in what I could do and how much of it I did.  I was constantly standing with my back against the wall, straining on tip toes to reach that line of 'achievement' always seemingly out of reach.

Now I have made peace with the dissatisfaction and given it a little condo next to my ambition.  They are in the 'burbs of my identity now.  Instead I am learning how to squeeze sloppy hugs from little sticky fellas in between management capability narratives.  I examine 'hurted' backs and make recommendations on heating pads to six year olds while figuring how to express a national learning institute in 25 pages or less.

I still am striving towards the finish line.  I've just purposed not to run myself into the ground to get there.  I won't crawl over.  I'll walk.  In my own sweet time.  In my own sweet way.


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