Pictures

It was once again Spring, and Millie was determined that this year she would actually do Spring cleaning while it was still Spring. Not only that, but she was going to set a new lifetime achievement record for herself by actually getting it ALL done in one day. Surveying her house, she could see that it would be a very long day.

“The day is not getting any longer, nor the work any less”, she told herself, “so get going!”

Millie prepared for the work ahead quickly. From under the sink came gloves, sponges, cleaning solutions and a bucket. From the closet came the duster, paper towels, mop and vacuum.

“I can’t believe all this crap is necessary” she muttered. “You can’t tell me that my grandmother needed 7 separate cleansers to put her house in shape!”

All the necessary chemicals and tools gathered, Millie set to work. First came the bathroom. After all, it was a small room and could be finished quickly. That would start her day off with a sense of accomplishment. She was of the opinion that she would need to boost her sense of accomplishment often in the face of such a gigantic task.

The bathroom done, she moved on to the bedrooms. Sheets washed and hung out on the line to dry. The dryer was convenient and nice, but the perfumed smell of dryer sheets and fabric softeners are a poor substitute for the smell of spring flowers and sunshine that the sheets absorbed when drying on the line outside. Even the comforters got a good outdoors airing. She dusted, discarded things, rearranged the furniture, vacuumed, cleaned the windows and the blinds. By the time she had finished the third bedroom, she was ready for a break.

Millie was on a roll and loathe to stop. She looked around for a task that she could do sitting down. The wall of bookcases caught her eye. Two entire shelves were piled with pictures and photo albums thrown into precarious piles. She decided to tackle those two shelves. At least she could sit down as she put some order into the pictorial hodgepodge. Millie dragged all the albums and photos and boxes of photos over by the couch. She had gotten a very big tub to put all the loose pictures in. It wasn’t exactly organization, but at least the precarious piles would be contained. At first it was easy. Just stack them neatly in the bin. But then Millie made her first error of the day – she stopped to actually LOOK at the photos.

Each of the photos released a volume of images that had long been stored in the albums of her mind, gathering dust. She got lost in swirls of color, whirlpools of emotion, tunnels to other times and places. She was dancing at her prom, welcoming each of her children into the world, and playing cards with her grandparents simultaneously. Water lapped at her canoe and she could taste the bacon frying over that fire. She was playing third base and refereeing a soccer game and cheering a disheartened basketball team. Christmas presents were everywhere, and marching through the discarded wrappings were a parade of pets that spanned 20 years. There was the orange tree she planted and there were her friends. Oh, Lord, what are all their names and where are they now? Wedding day jitters and divorce day depressions – all there in kodacolor. New fire engine red cars and bicycles. Baby fat fading from children’s faces in the steady progression of years of school pictures. Sea World, DisneyWorld, rides and petting zoos from parks long forgotten. Year after year of Halloween parties: Tarzan, Jane, Devils on skates, kitty cats, call girls, Indians, “loaded” dice, nuns, cavemen and Ratbo. The beach, the pool, the sprinklers. Artificially antiqued photos piled along genuine tin types. Great Gramma Barr with new shoes and a corn cob pipe. Farm life and city life. Youth and age. Birth and death. Joy and sorrow. Hope and despair. Fun and work. New beginnings and old endings. Everything was there and it all ran together in Millie’s mind.

Once she thought to look at the clock, but there must have been a power outage because the time couldn’t possible be right. She thought she’d just go through one more pile and then……..

Millie fell asleep on the couch, bits of her life captured in frozen colors on bits of paper strewn around her, the memories dancing through her dreams. No, she didn’t finish spring cleaning her house, but she most certainly DID air out some memories that had been gathering dust way too long and that, dear friends, was a true lifetime achievement.