When you live in a house for a quarter century you accumulate a lot of stuff. Cleaning out closets, opening old boxes you put away years and years and years ago, can turn up some surprising things. Special things, private things, things you long ago wrapped safely and put away for a time like today.
“I remember that” is quickly followed by “why did I keep this?” Then, suddenly, you hear the dashboard radio in that old car you wish was still in your driveway, or familiar music coming from somewhere on the far side of the park that draws you back into a moment you carefully preserved as if you’d known that today would one day come.
Inevitably the question comes around, “Would I do that again if I could? What if I had to do it again just the same way?”
The answer hangs in the air, mixes with the music playing over and over in my heart and fills the room as I wonder what I’ll find in the next box. When you live in a house for a quarter century you accumulate a lot of stuff.
