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			May 18, 2015 @ 11:14 p.m.
			Maybe it does apply
			I have a posting pattern I’ve been trying to keep. Loosely keep, that is-- as in three sizes too big. This one is suppose to be about the now, the present. But I have very little to divulge. Strange word, divulge; doesn’t quite apply.        I’m moving. A street over, but it’s still moving. Which means packing. Which means throwing stuff away. Over the years I’ve become very skilled at it. It’s easy but, before it is, it’s not. Before those trips to trash cans and bags labeled Goodwill, there’s a barrier that has to be passed. No, not passed, broken, like a membrane that needs to be torn barehanded. It’s a personal barrier, and it keeps the memories, or hopes or dreams or life, we breathe into things from slipping out. But once you dig those fingernails and tear, things become things. Stuff is just stuff. It’s easy then. So very easy to let go. But not before that membrane is gone.        Two years ago(or three or four), I spent some time in Texas moving my mother. My brother took the big stuff to the new place, and I cleaned and packed-up the old one. And it was easy, she gave me carte blanche. For everything but the living room tables-- side-tables, coffee table. One last living room set bought while married, and possibly happy. The keepers of the good before the end. Clunky and Big, in the middle of everything, taking up space that was no longer theirs to take. I suppose they were once beautiful-- creamy and sturdy, chest-like. But this was fifteen years later(or more or more), and with their battered corners and peeling paint they just felt out of place; relics of a bygone era now better left to rest. But, again, it’s a personal barrier. Only her hands could break it. And until the very last minute, the old things stayed in the old place, alone in an empty space that was no longer hers. And when the ok, call your brother came, it came with tears. And yeah, I understood it-- it hurts, that viscous snapping allowing everything to flutter free. I have stuff I still carry with me, move after move. They are small and most are paper.        But they’re not. Things. They’re not really the keepers of our time.
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