Levels of Storage Strata

I have things stored in the basement of my house.  All the things we decorated this house with that we wanted put away when we began to rent the place are all down there.  My sister wanted to store things there when she sold her house and they are down there as well.  My dad moved up to this neighborhood and had a few things he wanted to put in there as well.   About two months ago, my best friend asked if he too might be able to store a “few” things down there as well, as he was moving to China. 

Today we went down to reckon with these various levels of storage strata.  Open this box.  Are these my books?  No.  That’s definitely my friend’s art book.  What about these kitchen items?  My wife will have to make the call.  They could be hers or they could be my sisters.  I certainly don’t know.  At first I go through box after box of books.   Today is not the day for books.  I have crates of albums and tapes and silly old binders of materials I will almost certainly never use and one by one I move these boxes out of the way, digging deeper and deeper in to the pile against the wall. 

The big score involves the kitchen items.  We have been getting by in the kitchen with a skeletal array of kitchen items.  I know there are some framed paintings somewhere and eventually I find them over by the wall.  There is one sad eyed Irish lass with a big goose that we’d bought in the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, some eight years ago.  It’s a bit melodramatic but it will do.  There’s another strange print I’d bought in an antique store in San Francisco that has the year 1962 prominently etched along with the signature.  The glass is cracked, but again, it's better than the hook in the wall. 

I can feel the built up pressure in my lower back and after the thirty-eighth box or so I decide to quit while I’m ahead.  I know exactly how easy it is to pick up the thirty-ninth box or indeed, just turn a screw driver and throw the whole of one’s lower back out.  I’ve got plenty of pressure just now as it is.  I don’t need to be reminded of that sort of agonizing incapacitation.  Before I quit I find an orange tee shirt I’d purchased in Nicaragua some four years ago.  It’s a Tona Beer tee-shirt.  The logo is artful with trees receding to a center point above which is the famous Volcano of Momotombo.  I take it out and disregard the rest of the old clothes that are no longer of interest and through my rediscover into the wash with my other clothes.  I’m heading back upstairs now. 

Friday 8/09/19