In a creative rut the past couple of days, I’ve returned to the task of sorting out the garage. Julia got me started last month, but there are boxes I have been putting off going through. Yesterday, I boxed up most of Vernon’s books to give away, separating the typography books (all 7 or 8 boxes full) from the others, mostly books about art, cycling, coding, and spirituality. Dave, his type colleague, offered to help organize a donation of all his antique type catalogs to a typographer’s library in New York.

Among other things, I found a spare helmet…

Some seeds. I’d nearly forgotten about the herb gardener he liked to play at.

More shoes. Maki’s already nabbed the yellows.

We’ve been hoarding these things in the garage and on our shelves for so long. They won’t be needed by Vernon anymore so I welcome the next round of letting things go. They are just things but they symbolize so many of the areas of the life he had when he was with us.

I also stumbled upon a box of letters from the mid 1990’s, those last years before the internet and email.  I decided to keep most of them…perhaps one rainy day I’ll take the time to read them all again.

Relics of another lifetime.  Remnants of who I once was…and wanted to be. Proof that I ever lived in these places.

As it is, I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. But just in case I wanted them, I also found a couple boxes of old journals.

I must have thought they were worth storing all those years. I thumbed through some of them and realized I didn’t WANT to read any more. All the working out of thoughts, all the worries, etc. I no longer related to them. Or maybe I didn’t want anyone else reading them one day…so I threw them all out without any extra hesitation. Goodbye.

However, when I couldn’t find the box of love letters that I’d collected from Vernon over the early years of our relationships. I began to panic. How could I have held on to letters from 20 years ago, but not something as important as those? I thought I’d looked everywhere (though there are a few boxes of clothes I’ve yet to attack.) When did I last see them? What if they hadn’t survived one of the four major house moves of the past three years?

My mom says not to worry, that they will show up. Another friend stated: “they are there.” I am adopting their confidence and not worrying about it anymore. If they are meant to, they’ll show up. Maybe right now, its just not the time to find them.

In the meantime, an old favorite song…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy0rbxbNmOI