that girl and all of her junk

Today I saw a house on fire.

The roof was collapsing and the flames were licking at the sky.

Two fire trucks surrounded the home, whilst a man walked away, head bowed and a child in his arms.

I drove away then, with my own memories and junk and best intentions tucked away safely within me.

As I idled my car into our garage, I looked at all of the boxes of yesterdays and tomorrow  and I was thankful of course, for what hasn’t burned.  And for what has.

I’ve never been victim to a large house fire.  By that, I mean the type that destroys most or all material worth.  Though, of course, my life has had several severe flames of destruction.

Some of it remains as ash, whilst small embers still manage to stir up a flicker.

And today, I promised myself that I would declutter and clean up the messy bits.

The fire hazards of my life.

When I was almost twenty years of age, I lived in a share house and my best friend at the time decided to clean out our fireplace.  She emptied the burnt ash into a cardboard box and poured some water on it as a safety precaution and then set the box down in the back yard, beside the house.

It was probably twenty minutes or so later that I arrived home and noticed the distinct smell of smoke.  I considered that she might have been cooking again.  As pretty as she was, she was never the best cook.  It didn’t matter of course.  We were too young to care about eating well.  Our waistlines actually thanked us for it.  We drank most of our calories in alcohol anyway.

After inspecting the kitchen, I was drawn closer to the smell of smoke in the backyard and was well alerted to the fire.

The outside wall of our rental property was ablaze.

It was a minor fire, though enough to draw attention from neighbours, who proceeded to climb surrounding fences with hoses and buckets.  My friends red face and the hapless saucepan in her hand were cute but of no use.

We contained the fire and cursed at the damage, but being young and carefree, we could only laugh.

In my childhood, I had a friend who had left her electric blanket on whilst she and her family went to church.

They returned after praise and the house had burned to the ground.

That was the first time that I questioned faith in someone I was taught to worship and believe in.

Yesterday, I was searching for an important document in my garage and I ripped boxes open and flung through all of the things that I so obviously had valued enough to pack and move from house to house, too many times.

I’m a hoarder of the heart.

I collect things from yesterday and I keep them in little boxes.

I have the first set of keys from my second car – a vintage little white beast with a wing tail and red leather seats.  The car never really got going well but it was an ambition of mine, better given away as decided by my parents.  I purchased that car from a rich man in Toorak, for $250 and I’d hoped to fix it up enough to take long cruisy drives down the coast and across country like Thelma.  Or Louise.

I also have boxes containing old flyers from clubs, a hair ribbon from the prom dress of my paternal grandmother, love cards from ex boyfriends, my fathers twenty-first birthday silver key, my children’s first booties and one pregnancy test stick – complete with yesterday wee.

I have photos of people I no longer speak to.  Art from my children, tax documents, mothers day cards, a leaf from that romantic day in the park, concert ticket stubs, broken jewellery, my fathers stop watch from 1983, old certificates and a few broken dreams.

But yesterday, I couldn’t find the one thing I needed.

I was searching for a certificate from a 12 month study course I had completed when I was twenty years old.

Every other little yesterday ghost jumped out of me though.  Things I’ve more than once searched unsuccessfully for, in a sentimental moment and could never find.  Yesterday, they fell out of a handful of things and lay on the cold concrete floor and stared at me.

Here I am.

Where are you?

 I destroyed the garage, so much so that I couldn’t fit the car back into it.

The bottom of boxes fell out and books and stuff and paperwork fell to the ground and it was a surmountable thing to pick it all up and fit it all back into collapsed boxes and not a wheel of masking tape to be found.

So I pushed it all to the side and left the car on the street.

When my husband got home, after he rolled his eyes and before he kissed my forehead for the silly thing I am sometimes, he asked me if I’d checked the filing cabinet for my lost certificate.

No, I’m not THAT organised.

 Well, it turns out that I am.

There it was, in its little green coil bound folder, neatly slipped between a plastic insert sheet.  And there were photocopies of it.

Wow, I forgot who I once was.

As a mum to four children, two pets and one husband, the last eight years or so have included me trying to be as organised as possible, whilst also doing what works best.  And most easiest.

Sometimes, that means throwing stuff into a basket on top of the fridge and then transferring it (when it begins to fall down the sides and back of the fridge) into a plastic bag and setting it aside for sorting.  One day.

Although, let me not sound completely self-deprecating and add that I recently cleaned the top of the fridge after hearing that what we accumulate there multiplies.  So, if we place bills to be paid, on top of the fridge, Feng Shui suggests our debts will escalate.  So I moved ours and since then, they’ve all been sitting in a messy pile on our large Indonesian wooden dining table.

Exasperating I know.

I’m a messy girl, though not unclean.

I think that I might need something (or someone) one day so I never really throw anything away.

I wonder how I would feel if my own house burned to the ground and I was left with nothing?

We have insurance for the things that matter and cost most, but the rest is of sentimental value and that’s always irreplaceable.  Right?

I know the value of a good clean out and don’t get me wrong, I’ve thrown lots of things away over the years of my life.  It’s just that some things really seem better kept in my heart and cardboard storage, tucked away but accessible.

Truth is, the bits of my life, which matter most, would never do well in a cardboard box.

Those things are here – my family and friends, my animals and my self.

All of the photos I have that need sorting into albums and smaller boxes (see, it’s a box addiction perhaps) are also important – they’re the things for tomorrow.  They’re the things I’m keeping for my children.  Though, I’m not sure if I should keep the hippy photos of me, dancing in a forest wearing tie dye and sporting yellow hair under an acid moon.  I can’t see why not.  That was me.  And I always hid the bong well in group photos.

It’s all true testament to who their mother was.  And is.

The worst of the pictures these days involve some lounge room table top dancing with friends (clothed) though the wild remnants of me are always visible.  Most are hiding within the wrinkles on my face.

What about the grandmother ribbon?  Or the ticket stubs from bands and concerts and dance parties?  That’s also who I was and am.

I would’ve loved my mother or father to hand me a big box of who they were from yesterday.

Warts, sins and all.

I’m going to tidy up my garage boxes and try to condense it down to one for my children.  Something for when they’re adults themselves.

There will be a warning strewn across the top of the box.  It will read something about keeping an open mind and DO-NOT-OPEN-UNTIL-YOU’VE-MADE-PLENTY-OF-FASHION-MISTAKES-AND-HEART-ERRORS-OF-YOUR-OWN.

One day, it’ll all make sense.

Someone will burrow through my yesterdays and screw up their nose at the wee stick, the silly clothing, the photos of my old boyfriends and they’ll say, “No wonder she married Dad.  He was a cowboy, just like our grandfather was.  No, he didn’t ride horses but he tamed that girl.  That girl and all of her junk.”