Lurking

My favorite time of day. Noone else is up but me, unless you count Eddie, and he is busy grooming himself, which totally drives me wild.
It is gray and gloomy out the window,there is a fine sleet like snow falling, the roads are covered. Ah, winter.
But I guess from all reports, the midwest has gotten blitzed, and I should not complain.
So I won't.

I have just noticed this huge nest in the the tree right across the road. Wondering what the heck?

From december

I am in a strange, recurrent mood, one that totally annoys my DH. I want to move the furniture around, throw things out, knock down a wall, or two. I want organization, simplicity, lack of clutter, clean lines everywhere. I don't know if I am having a 'minimalist' attack, or what. But I am appalled by the 'stuff' that we have and don't use, or don't need, or worse, have even forgotten about.
I have two things I like to stash: books, and yarn/thread. I have a couple of places in the house where those are kept. That's it. I don't like the conglomeration of papers and clothes and shoes, JUNK, that abounds.
Drawers, closets full. And the stuff in them doesn't get used, in fact, I doubt that if anyone actually knows what is in them all.
We have a couple of walls covered with framed photos. OK. But then the hearth is buried with MORE framed photos. I took a bunch of them OUT of the frames, and put the photos in a photo book, and I am not done yet.
My brain says ENOUGH.
I can't even think about the attic. Pictures and videos of DH's late mother and father. BOXES of them. Enough hunting paraphernalia and clothes to outfit a small HORDE of men on a hunting expedition. Clothes. Racks and racks of clothes.

It brings me back to my Dad's place. My dad, the junkman.
He used to make money, all my life, he made money. That was his forte.
And growing up very poor, making money made him feel better, safe. As I am sure it did many of his generation.
He spent many, many hours on the road, buying 'stuff', filling the 'building'
with goodies. But as he got older, and more eccentric, and his health failed, both physically and mentally, he just collected, and forgot to sell. And by that time, some of the stuff he brought home, was nothing anyone with any sense would buy. So he filled every corner.
For the last several years of his life, his house was a hoarders dream, or nightmare.
My mother had moved to live with me, sick of the craziness. She and I would go there, to check on him: was he taking his meds (count the pills), was he eating (check the fridge and dates of food), was he interested (yet) in having us clean the place out? didn't he want to be NORMAL? whatever that meant.
No, not yet, he would say.
He had a path, a straight line of vision, from his chair to his TV, so he could see Jerry Springer clearly.
There was just enough space on the table for a plate, and maybe a glass.
You could get to the toilet, and the bed.
End.
Every time I went there, I began to panic. The longer I was there, the worse it would get. There was no talking to him. The filth and the clutter crawled into my brain, leaving no room for any reason. I paced. Went outside, came back in. Tried to get him to look at me, tried to get him to see what I saw.
Not happening.
When we left, I always felt like bawling. He was unmoved.
It took days for me to get it out of my head.
And yes, the limb didn't fall from the tree. I have looms. I have yarn. I have fabric, thousands of pounds of it. Looper looms, loopers. Weaving stuff.
The difference is that every once in a while, I have to take stock, I have to get it all in order. I have to KNOW what I have, and answer the question: will you use it, EVER?
I occasionally give stuff away, take stuff to the transfer station, sell stuff.
Just to prove to myself that I really can.
NOTHING, I mean NOTHING feels better to me, more consoling to me, than walking into my studio all neat, and orderly, and without stacks, piles, or unknowns.
I simply cannot take it.
My kids have always joked that while I was not the best housekeeper ever, our table and kitchen counter were always CLEAN. Always.
To me, if the counter and table are clean, I am OK. There is order. There is reason.

Maybe that explains why walking into my own house at the end of a long day, to see the kitchen counter KNEE DEEP in crap, makes me feel unhinged.
There are times, when I could seriously clean sweep everything on it into a garbage bag, and take it OUT.
I do not joke here.
There is something deep and painful lurking here.
I guess I will go frost my mother's birthday cake, and leave it lurking.
Ya think?