I’m home, after cleaning out my parents’ old house on the farm they loved, and saying goodbye to all of it. Yes, it’s a lot. I promised myself I wouldn’t take too much stuff, that I’d be good about tossing, weeding, giving it away. Then I filled an old steamer truck with photos, journals, important papers ( like the program from my parents’ wedding) that my kids can throw away when I’m gone and not looking.The last night we lit a fire, and my brother-in-law and I shared a hundred dollar bottle of wine we found in the basement, because, well, we couldn’t take it with us.
There’s more, of course.
In the meantime, I wanted to share this thought with you from Anne Lamott:
“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do’. And mostly, against all odds, they do.”
― from her book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
