Tripod: Messages from the Staff

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src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/pods.gif" alt="Pod Map" width="170" height="18" border="0" align="top" ismap></a></td> </form> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="170">  <tr><td></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> </table> <center><form name="FreeShop"> <table border="0" width="120" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr valign="TOP"> <td align="center" valign="TOP" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120"> <a href="/"> </a></td> </tr> <tr valign="TOP"> <td align="center" valign="TOP" nowrap bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120"> <select name="FreeShop" onchange="self.parent.location.href = "http://www.tripod.com/bin/accipiter/tripod_adclick?CID=000023280000033200000000&overrideURL=" + this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;"> <option value="">FreeShop <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00013.htm">Computing <option 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value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00025.htm">-& Sports <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">Completely <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">-FREE Offers </select></td> </tr> </table> </form> </center> </td> <td valign="TOP" width="100%"> <basefont size="3">   <p> <p> <img src="../../../tripod/letters/img/www_subdomain/letter.top.gif" alt="from tripod..with love.." width="401" height="124" border="0"> <br> <p><blockquote> <b>From Christina Simmons, Membership Assistant:</b> <p> Moving is an experience which brings out the philosopher in me. All that walking back and forth, covering the same path, nothing to fill the mind but the task at hand -- it's quite conducive to meditation. I did quite a bit of moving this summer... packing up my classroom for the last time, trundling all those books and boxes to their new homes, tucking all my worldly belongings into cardboard at home, hauling them north, and going about the business of setting up my first apartment. As a result, I found myself with a great deal of time on my hands for contemplation. <p> It was Henry David Thoreau, I think, who said that our lives are "frittered away by detail." Absolutely right, I decided -- and most of that detail is frittering away in my desk drawers and closets. Old college papers, ceramic knick-knacks bestowed by students at Christmas, photographs of nothing in particular, crayon pictures of dinosaurs and puppy dogs from my first elementary students, the glossy brochures from car shopping, used wrapping paper (carefully removed and folded)... it was all carefully packed and dutifully moved. Staring around my new apartment, some questions assert themselves: "Where am I going to put all of this?" "What do I do with all this junk?" <p> Junk? Technically, yes. It's useless stuff, most of it, and I certainly don't want it hanging about the place, taking up space. But trying to get rid of it -- that's another matter altogether. The college papers and brochures and paper memories, yes... those can be weeded through, and the best kept for posterity in a small file in the desk. But what of the pile of printed e-mail that turned up in the drawer? I've always loved letters. I pore over published collections of them, and a small wooden box on my dresser contains my most favorite letters and cards received in my pre-e-mail years. I can't just throw them away! And then there's the collection of my personal writings -- bad poetry, like the poem I wrote about Bono when I was fourteen, the scrawled-out copy of my first novel, character sketches and fragments of scenes. They're not terribly good, but someday they might just be useful. A writer saves everything. And then there are those pictures that my first-graders drew for me, and the stories they wrote -- the ones with wobbly Pooh-bear letters declaring "I lov yu mis smmnz." I can't throw those away -- can I? <p> The bills I have to keep, I'm told, for five years, and I just don't have the energy to sit down and sift through all those bank statements. I'll need new car insurance, now that I've moved, but the old documents should be kept for records. Old receipts, clippings for bulletin boards, the articles my mother clipped and sent to me all through college (she says I never kept them... but I'll show her!)... <p> In the end, I decide that the paper "fritters" can stay. They aren't taking much room, after all. It's the big things, the knick-knacks, that really need to be thinned out. I can hold a yard sale, maybe. There's enough there to turn a moderate profit. But I can't sell the ceramic harp seal pup bank my sister gave me two Christmases ago. She brings up, every now and again, how she just HAD to get it at a craft fair for me -- and that it's a signed original piece of art. It's on top of my refrigerator now; it just doesn't look right anywhere else. The ceramic masks I used to enjoy can go -- after a while, those eyeless sockets staring at you off a wall are darned spooky! But the friend who gave them to me still comes to visit... Well, the Christmas collection can go, that's for sure -- the "secret Santa" tokens and the small trinkets bestowed by students that never look right anywhere other than a classroom. But there are memories in those little gifts from the heart, too. Well, I suppose they aren't taking up much room, either. <p> I don't even dare think of my closet. I have clothes in there that I haven't worn for years, despite periodic purgings and cartings to the Salvation Army. It was inevitable, on those days, that my mother would see the bags and ask "You're not throwing that out, are you?" The disapproving sigh would follow me like a free-floating conscience all the way to the dumping point. Mom won't see what I purge here -- and I'll need to, that's for certain, because I've still got a pile of clothes I don't wear at home. Something can go, and good riddance, too. <p> But moving out on your own is a money drain. I'm not going to have much cash to spare for clothes for a few months, at least. SOMEthing in those closets has to fit well enough, look good enough, to make shift for a bit. I'll sort them out some rainy weekend -- that's it. Sort them out, and keep only what will definitely be worn this time. That works. <p> My apartment is assembled, now. It looks like a little home. It certainly has enough of my fritters left about to feel homey, even if I never look at them. I've made a solemn oath to myself, though, that this time, the fritters are staying at home. I will NOT clutter my workstation with the overflow -- except for the worry-dolls from South America. And Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger; they look cute on the computer base. And the little bean-bag dinosaur I bought -- I paid for it, it's practically new, so it has to stay. But that godawful ugly mural I just hung on the wall, THAT will go, definitely. Without a question... <p> Just as soon as I find a good home for it. <p> <ul> ~<a href="/">Chris</a> :) (10/04/96) </ul> "Be nice to everyone, because you don't know who you're talking to." John Kozek<br> <hr width="330"> <p> <center>Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/archive.html">archive</a>.</center> <p> <hr width="330"> </blockquote> <br> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>