Looking behind, and ahead

Ever had one of those days? Where it starts out just all wrong. You try to fix it along the way, but really what needs to happen is that you get to start over. Wake up all over again.

That was my day it seemed. Every time I turned around or even just kept walking straight the obstacles seemed to get bigger and bigger. I dont know what you do in that type of situation, but I tend to organize. I dont have control over some of the other stuff, but I for sure will make sure everything is in its place. Even go so far as to find a new place for something just so then I have a new project to keep organized.

This day called for a big dose of organizational medicine. It even spilled over into vacuuming and dusting and such.

It was the vacuuming that did it. The vacuuming. The soothing sound of the machine. The way it leaves those nice tracks in your carpet. (Okay, thats pushing it...but still, bear with me) There are 2 things that can happen when I am on an organizational mission. I can either end up in organizational utopia, where I just get so into the moment that everything else just fades away, or it takes me down memory lane. Something, and it can be any small thing, somehow, conjures up a memory so big that at times I have had to keep working and working until the memory was basically re-enacted in my head. The full version. Nothing edited. Im not talking a little remembering and then its done. I mean like I am there again. I can reach out and touch things. Smell things. Be there again.

So, when I say it was the vacuuming. I really mean it was a stool. Which leads me to the vacuum.

I was vacuuming. My bedroom. And then I bumped into the stool. A little stool. Inconsequential to the average Joe, but huge to me. Huge enough to invoke a memory that I had not thought of for many, many years.

My grandma. She was a huge part of me. Still is, really. I think of her every day. Mostly tho, she comes into my thoughts when I am having a day like today. She reacted to things very similarly to myself. Her need to be in control was always looming. Everlasting. Same as mine. When she needed an out, or needed to vent, or just needed...she organized...and cleaned. More than that, tho, she always made it clear that there was no time for complaining...just get up and fix it...get up and try to do something. Anything to make it better. Sitting there complaining that you are having a bad day is not gonna make it better, she said. You have to do that.

Sorry, back to the stool. Its a little stool. Maybe 12 inches high, if that. Little wooden legs, oil cloth cover that is delicately worn. Faded, but still vivid. It was grandma's. It always sat next to the TV cabinet. From the time I was 5 I always went to spend a good deal of the summer with my grandma. That stool was always there. In the same spot.

It was known, in no uncertain terms, that the stool was my ally. (And, no, not just because I am vertically challenged.) It was multi -purpose, that stool. It helped me physically, but also mentally and emotionally. It was where I went to sit when I needed to think. When I needed to cry. When I needed to remember.

So, today, I stopped vacuuming, and sit on the stool, I did. Remember, I did. And the memories were so there. So now. It was hard to realize where it stopped and my day in front of me began. But, in sitting there I realized that it was all okay. I would be okay. The day would be okay. So, it was only natural, at that point, to get up and start again.