Feng Shui

Honey, where’s the white wine?”

“Have you tried looking in the refrigerator?” spoken with barely disguised irony. Wasn’t it Nora Ephron who said men’s DNA is disrupted by the light in the refrigerator which is why they never see a carton of milk right in front of them?”

“Of course I did!”

“My voice is now dripping with sarcasm “Well, how about the wine rack? Or on the kitchen counter? Or in your belly?”

He is now both exasperated and annoyed. “I…have…looked…everywhere!”

And he’s right. The truth is I have no idea where it is either, In fact we have no idea where anything is. Because we’ve made the fatal decision to get rid of our furniture and redesign our living room, and as a consequence, we have entered the fourth circle of hell.

For decades the mere thought of a clear-out had us scrambling back to bed and pulling up the covers. But the time had come. So while my husband cowered in his office, a paid friend and I got a bulk order of carboard boxes, bubble-wrap, and trash bags. Then we started in with the frenzied fervor of a recent convert.

Remember the Blackberry? Well, we have all the chargers for it. How about two iPhone 5’s, no longer supported by Apple and therefore an open invitation to hackers? Even more inexplicable, a twenty-four year old Nokia with charger and manuals. Or an empty Printer box complete with manuals and connectors. A defunct video tape editing system. In fact we have the makings of a veritable computer history museum.

How about a lifetime supply of rubber bands taken from post office deliveries. Amenities from various hotels around the world. A plastic box that could be useful if you were looking to…but there I stop. I can’t think of any use. Squirrelled away plastic bags, gift bags, wrappings and ribbons which we don’t have enough friends to ever use. Mis-matched pottery that just might come in handy one day. And a long forgotten patchwork quilt I started 30 years ago.

Not to mention the clear-out of three floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stuffed double deep. In the end, a broken woman,  I decided everything out except  those books that made me look less of a Philistine, those with Hebrew writing for my husband, and of course anything I wrote.

After many back-breaking days we ended up with 42 boxes that we gave to charity and countless bags of trash we couldn’t get anyone to take. I resolved never to move again. Ever! I want my corpse shipped direct from my bedroom to the place where my remains will reside.

Then for three months we lived in one room, like cavemen, hunched around the TV. Finally after the predictable delays, excuses, more delays and more excuses we opened the boxes, ripping off tape and unwrapping bubble wrap in high anticipation to find…

Okay. I knew we weren’t going to find a Picasso. But we have given away over 40 boxes filled to the rim. Let’s put it this way, on a lifeboat when the captain says we’re going to have to jettison everything but the most essential possessions, this is what we chose to save? Hopeless trinkets picked up at flea markets by our mothers, a finger painting made by my husband’s daughter at age five, several half-burned candles, a large bag of match books, more hotel amenities now turned to solids.

And the living room? Though still missing one piece of the furniture and several rugs, our paintings however hung, the room looked huge, pristine, like an art gallery, empty wooden floors gleaming. It was calm, peaceful. We crept in, like tourists, sat down gingerly and gazed in awe, afraid to put a newspaper down and create a mess. It reminded me of middle class women in the 60’s who used to put plastic covers over the furniture, removing them only when the rabbi came. Oh, the Marie Kondo-ness of it all. Feng Sui on steroids.

But then after a while spent in reverential silence, we scurried back to the cozy chaos of our cave.

Somebody once said: “Junk is the life you’ve led.” It’s archives, relics. Maybe not as important as George Washington’s teeth but a time capsule of life. Because one’s life is mostly that hideous trinket your mother picked up for you in a flea market and your father’s old jean jacket and a champagne cork with a fifty pence coin in it and a hotel shampoo… remember that hotel in Italy. It was so great and they gave us an upgrade.

In some ways junk is more memorable than the photos of the high points of life. So in the end, it’s not really junk at all. It’s the stuff of life.

The Blackberry chargers, however, I cannot explain.

TURNING POINTS from Crowd-Writing

a book by Shelley Katz

Out Now