Domestic Archeology, Part I

If there is any justice in the universe, when you've reached an age where downsizing becomes necessary, you will find that your work presents special challenges. When I began taking apart my house after a decade of residence, I thought I had a good idea of what was involved. Months later, with the task mostly completed, I feel that all the complexities of unsorted stuff and personal nonsense somehow offered a new and very instructive view of my last ten years. Yes, it's a cheap form of self-assessment, and at present, it's all I can afford.

Please give me this benefit of a doubt: for six of those years, I had a full-time job that sucked the air out of the rest of my life. What was left in the wake of not sorting and organizing was amusing, horrifying, endearing, and bizarre at times. The house I am about to sell was about double what I actually needed, but when you are in your forties, you sometimes forget that all that junk will pile up like new year's resolutions. There was definitely an acquisitive phase and I acquired too much. Word to my friends who are thinking of downsizing: you probably have no idea of what all has gathered under your roof, and you'd better get to dealing with it.

Twenty years ago, I started grad school, and clinging to every book on every topic I could find was only logical. (Now, you can look it up on the web or join an online library like Questia.) So there were books and more books and books beyond the posted limits of what one mind could absorb. Some collections of books are still precious to me (novels set in Michigan, Motown Records histories, Janis Joplin biographies, several boxes of anti (Vietnam) war books and studies of hippie counterculture, and some important tomes from my youth. Who knows why I need to hold on to my fourth grade poetry textbook, but there is at least one item in there that I cherish because I once had to memorize it.

Other media forms follow suit: I love the tapes I made on grainy VHS twenty years ago, though several trash bags worth have been deleted. My pre-recorded VHS tapes went to charity. I have only kept VHSes of the following categories: obscure silent film, cult standards, and personal oddities, including (like the fourth grade poem) a bunch of old TV shows I taped. Who can live without an old Schmenge Brothers special with John Candy and the rest of the SCTV wackos? (Look them up on YouTube.) I also have vinyl, cassettes, and a few music or video things on little discs that I am not at all sure how to play, since the formats failed. For full disclosure's sake: a few 78s, no eight tracks or wax cylinders.

There are other categories to consider, but as any good writer should, I will take my readers' attention span into consideration and save my brain cells (and yours) for later. Just view this as the first part of a cautionary tale: you could end up like me if you aren't careful...