Cleaning Your Memory Closet

We've been house cleaning. It's a relief to get things organized and put into appropriate places, but it seems that everywhere I turn around I find another place that needs to be emptied and organized/reorganized. *sigh* Today's focus started out so simply - I needed a small amount of polyfill for a beading project I've been working on.

Polyfill batting comes loose or in sheets. Sheets are used for quilts,
loose is used for stuffing pillows, dolls, etc. 

Polyfill is what pillows, dolls, stuffed animals, etc are stuffed with. Stuffing can be made from many things - polyfill, wool, scraps of fabric, even horsehair in past days (scratchy, that!). The problem with polyfill is the stores don't sell small amounts - it's usually a fairly large and bulky package. Hard to miss, even in a cluttered closet.

Everyone has cluttered closets. We're trying to get ours cleaned out. 

My sewing closets are full of fabulous material, lots of patterns, threads, even things like raw silk for spinning and various dyes to color it. Remember - I said polyfill is sold in large bags. Large bags, even if they comprise material meant to be highly compressed into smaller spaces, should be easy to locate in a fairly small space. But I can't find mine. I awakened a half-hour earlier than normal today to pull things out of my main sewing closet and I worked my way down, looked at everything, but no polyfill. I really don't want to buy a bag - I'm trying to get rid of things, not bring new things in. But I need polyfill. Tomorrow I'll pull out the material from my secondary closet and see what I have in there ...

Memories pile up - wonderful things, sad things, happy things. 

Looking at these closets reminds me of our lives and how we deal with memories. We experience an event, meet a person, read a book, see a performance, and then we are left with the memory. We push that memory into our mental closets or file cabinets, organized neatly - or maybe not so neatly. We stuff more and more into our mental spaces and when things overflow, we grab what we can and reorganize, often pushing the old memories into back corners and high shelves.

Recall some of your old memories. Dust out those corners. 

Are you guilty of treating your treasured memories like old knick knacks or sporting equipment that you've pushed into the back corners of cupboards in rooms you rarely visit? Why not clean out one of your mental closets a bit - revisit some old memories that brought you joy. Think about that trip to the zoo with the older person who died years ago. Remember the ballet, symphony or rock music performance you attended and who you were with. Dig out those dusty corners. Those who have passed on live on in our memories. Maybe today it is time to dust some of those memories off and let them live again.

Have a great weekend.