yesterday...

... I drove to south GA. And loaded my car up with boxes full of kitchen furnishings. All the things a person would acquire over sixty years of living in the same place, cooking for a family, making a welcoming home. I actually could not get all the boxes in my car, and will have to make another trip to get the rest of the stuff. Pots and pans, place mats and napkin holders, plates and bowls. Drinking glasses and coffee mugs. Coffee pots and pitchers. Refrigerator containers and wooden salad bowls. Paring knives and wooden spoons. Can openers and a vast assortment of flotsam and jetsam that accumulates in the course of living in one place for over fifty years.

It's still in my car. Loaded to the gills. I might be able to squeeze a toothpick in there sideways. But otherwise, it is jam-packed full. I am going to start calling around this morning to try to find a place to unload it. So desperate to get it out of  my life, I already have the numbers written down and ready to call as soon as the hour gets decent enough  to be pestering people about taking it off my hands and out of my life.

This stuff has been weighing me down for quite some time, I know I need to move on, let it go. I just don't know precisely what to do with it. The kind of stuff you wish someone would walk up, appear from thin air and say: Let me help you with that. So I am sincerely hoping that one of the places I plan to call, a women's shelter, and a place that helps recently released inmates get on their feet again, will be interested in the kinds of things I have to offer. The little things you acquire over time, that individually don't take up any space at all, but cumulatively can fill up a dozen boxes in a matter of minutes.

I spent about the same amount of time driving there and back, as I spent loading. I made a list of all the stuff, as it went into boxes, to use when I donate, get a receipt. Otherwise it would have been one of those days when I devoted more time to the going and coming than the being there. Foolish me, I had also loaded up my weed spraying goods, expecting to have time to do a bit of yard work while I was there. But it was easily 99 degrees in the shade by early afternoon, so that was not an option. Just going and coming, and listening to public radio...