Peach tart just out of the oven, and it’s hot as a steam kettle outside…. Yes, it’s summer all right.
And what better time than a heat wave to clean out the attic? I can’t believe that’s what we chose to do yesterday, but we did. Nothing like a transatlantic move to light a fire under you. (A very hot fire.)
The day was better than it sounds, mostly because we had the sense to bring the boxes downstairs, where the A/C was running. And most of the contents were easy to junk. You could say it was the revision to end all revisions: We started with a novel and ended up with a sonnet.
What’s most interesting is what we chose to keep. Here’s a sample: A fan from San Francisco’s Chinatown, brought home by my dad when I was small. The tiny white china rabbit from my nursery school. A postcard from my paternal grandmother, about the only thing I have left from her.
Telling details, all of them. Little things that carry a lot of weight. And food for thought for me as a writer.
I’ll post later this week about what else I saved — a writer’s idea of treasure trove.