Niagra Falls crashed through our garage last night. It’s been out of control in there. The clutter. It’s always like that in winter. Closed up in our house with the kids for months, we shuttle outgrown belongings to the garage to make room for blanket tents and 4 p.m. dance parties. We don’t have a basement or a spacious attic. By April each year,the only open floor space in the garage is a narrow path to my office stair.
As of yesterday, there was also a smell.
The jig was up. “Rodents are a gift from the Universe,” says the author of one of my Feng Shui books (the kind I had time to read before before becoming a parent.) “They force you to address your mess.”
Joe and I put the kids to bed. He set up at the dining room table to do some work. I headed over to the garage, armed with heavy-duty garbage bags. First up was the area opposite the door, where piles of recycling leaned against open bins of long-retired toddler and preschooler toys. I pulled away stacks of corrugated cardboard, and that’s when the whitewater rushed in.
Toys tumbled from the bins, and memories sailed over the cliff. I fell to my knees. There was the little wooden ladybug who once twirled with two others atop a magnetic music box. She was a gift from Sadie, our babysitter, who four years ago watched our infant son from 8:30 til noon while I worked. For exactly 4.75 months, Sadie and I had a well-choreographed routine (before she skipped town for a boy). At 11:30, she’d set a little IKEA bowl on our back steps with a snack for my daughter. I’d grab it on my way to retrieve her from preschool. Through the closed door I could hear my son’s coos. I’d crouch down so he wouldn’t see me. “I’ll be right back” is a concept beyond the grasp of a eight-month-old. If a mother is gone for a minute, she is gone, gone, gone.
After the ladybug, I climbed back into the barrel and went over the Falls with dozens of other toys, one at a time. The Playmobil circus truck with the missing tailgate. The chirping cardinal from the grocery store aisle. The little stainless pots and pans, the teething rings, the Lego trees, and the orphaned Old Maid cards. It was a thrill ride. Ha! Hadn’t we loved my little children and been well-loved in return? This was what it meant to remember. Every detail. How many times I’ve fretted about forgetting the minutia of my babies’ early childhood. The ladybug and I heard our worry crash on the rocks while we bobbed in the foam. On my next trip down, a plastic kazoo bragged, “Your girl never cared a whit about dolls, but she played her heart out on me!”
After a three-hour, rollicking ride, the toys and I called it a night. Gathered around my feet were piles I’d made, smiley reunions of toys whose parts had spent years in separate Rubbermaid bins. The long-lost puzzle pieces. The wood firefighter jigsaw from Grandma C., and the magnet-fishing puzzle from my late-night, pre-trip shopping spree. They were all in the vault, every piece both banal and sacred. That is parenthood. In the fog and the mist I was lucky enough to be there for it all. And I remain here still. The smell in the garage was just fear and elation, boredom and wonder. Sweat and adrenaline, kisses and tears.
It was always torturous for me to part with my boys’ toys and games. I felt like I would forget what they were like if not for the tangible reminders. However, after significant dysfunction due to clutter (and a flooded basement), I was able to begin the purge, the cosmic cleanse. A local human service provider hosts a “Santa’s Workshop” each year, though this one has a twist: gently used toys and games are donated so that children (many underprivileged) who participate in their programs can select gifts for their siblings. I could finally let go with the hope that another child might gleen some happiness from my sons’ histories.
After a few (well, more than “a few” actually – rodents’ “gifts from the universe, THIS ‘way over the top sentimental mommy freak learned ANOTHER lesson from one of the rodents’ “gifts” — those tiny, needle toothed, furry pals who share the darker corners of our cottage find little challenge in what we THOUGHT was a fortified memory bank holding beloved Superman capes, Baby Sugars and the like. PLASTIC ? NO PROBLEM !! Didn’t we LEARN when we saw the little Roman arched mouse holes chewed in the corner of our antique cupboards? Plastic bins ? NO prob – mere (mouse) child’s play for Minnie and Mickey. Hint: so far I’m ahead with galvanized trash bins.