Closing This Door

I have been neglecting my writing as I pack up my office to move, and carry things downstairs.  Sorting, throwing, making hard decisions; my least favorite work.  It's come down to the following, besides the uninteresting manila folders full of papers—

being left behind:

• Desert Sage tea leaves
• Spring Cherry tea (one bag)
• wooden clocklet with dragonflies
• russet mugs
• atlas
• cherry gummies
• corn soup
• old typewriter
• blonde folding desk
• broken shell, from friends’ children
• bright Turkish cookbook card
• two played-out ficuses
• swan calendar
• United Nations flag
• Italian vase
• blue speckled mugs
• rooster (cockerel) mug
• some oregano in Royal Worcester porcelain
• New Mexico charm bracelet
• terra cotta face
• two torn batik patchwork jackets
• two cobalt blue glasses
• handmade wooden briefcase (graduation from highschool present)
• orchid
• Christmas cactus
• lots of Black Lab hair
• wedding video cassettes
• favorite 45s:  Hard Candy Christmas, American Pie, The Show Must Go On, I’ll Be There, Oh, Babe, What Would You Say, #9 Dream, Gypsy, Someone Saved My Life Tonight
•  two of my father’s 33 1/3s:  Jose Melis Piano Moods, Down in the Valley
• pink sneakers (too small)
• worn-out mouse pads from the Museo Nazionale Romano (“Mosaico a soggetto nilotico”) and of ancient Athenian coins
• various quotes, including “wherever you go, go with all your heart” (Confucius) and “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”  (e.e. cummings)
• a color drawing by the young son of friends (going to Angel Island)
• an unfinished double-crostic book of my parents’
• a par avion sticker

 coming along, for sure:

• kaleidoscope
• Cretan espresso demitasse
• geode
• keyhole photo
• “Vietato entrare” sign
• fine woven basket
• “Ecrire” sign
• sarcasm sign
• bear fetish
• lion box
• black sheep
• three glass marbles
• straw fish
• Oscar Wilde 1882 photo
• two fortunes:  “You will travel many places”; “Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life”
• Canadian $5 note
• The Great Herbal two-volume set
• a calendar of the Zen Circles of Kazuaki Tanahashi (from whom I took a class once)

image:  Matter of Taste