moving forward, re-arranging

One of the conditions of my gainful unemployment this summer is that I 'lend a hand around the house.'

Before I arrived, mum sent me a list of projects she would like completed in and around the family farm. Most of it involved de-cluttering, and organizing. We are a family of packrats, chronic hoarders, and we are aided and abetted by the house itself which is extremely large with lots of little places to stash stuff that you don't need now but might need one day in the next 25 years. By which time you'll have forgotten where you put those welding canisters (if not forgotten that you had them in the first place) and you'll probably end up replacing them.

Over the past week I've been mired in the garage. A passing glance reveals that it contains two cars, 4 bicycles, two motorcycles, and a random engine on blocks in the corner. And about two tonnes of stuff I can't identify.

It is strange, this situation with my dad. Now, over a year after his death, I do not expect to hear the sound of his keys dropping into the drawer in the back hall, or hear his voice starting answering machine messages with 'hello family...' He is absent, he is away.

But, then again, he isn't. Pockets of the house and yard are so physically imprinted with my father, that they leave me short of breath. The garage is one such place. I'm pretty sure that a visual representation of my father's brain would look like the inside of our garage: the corners of military orderliness, the cupboards overflowing with screwdrivers and ratchet sets, the bits and pieces of projects, a battered but eminently useful radio.

It's tidier now. We can see the back corner by the vacuum tank, and I know exactly how many wire spoke MGB wheels we have.* The screwdrivers are all in a labeled jar, and most of the broken, unidentifiable, unusable in the foreseeable future stuff has been given a new home at the dump.

I guess now the garage has my brain's stamp - which could cause all sorts of problems - but, for the moment, my shoulders don't clench when I walk through, I can find a hammer if I need one, and I've got a new (ish) radio.

*Four on the car plus six extra. Thank you for asking.