closets | The Direction of Intention

Prepare For The Freeze [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on May 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

In our home there is no task so daunting as the cleaning-out of her closet. We’ve had several near-attempts. Occasionally, small dents have been made to the outer layer. But, in the end, all forward progress shuts down. This mountain is too formidable to climb. With the closet door open she stands staring in; frozen.

I understand. It’s not simply clothes to be tossed. It’s memories. Associations. The archeology of a lifetime. For my story-thready wife, taking her old clothes to the Goodwill is like tossing her memories into an abyss.

I’ve suggested leaving it alone and building another closet to make badly needed new space for the present-and-future clothes. My suggestion always inspires THAT look. So, I’ve learned to keep silent. Hold my tongue. I’ve learned the art of the silent head-nod.

Now I know, on those dubious occasions she declares, “This is the day…” my job is to prepare for the emotional-lock-up, the mental freeze. The inevitable zombie-stare of defeat. I fluff extra pillows for her favorite chair. I position the hassock so I can rub her feet. I open a bottle of wine.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CLOSET

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Look Back [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our 3am conversation was about the horrible clothes we once wore. We both lived through the 70’s and 80’s so there was plenty of fodder for shudders and laughter. I couldn’t be more delighted that cameras in that era used film that was expensive to process, and were not ubiquitous, so there’s limited visual proof of the alarming garments of my past.

Looking back. My favorite aspect of our horrible-clothes-conversation is how much we loved the offending items when we wore them. I had a Huckapoo shirt that was only worn on special occasions. I’d scream and run from that shirt if I opened my closet and found it there today. Kerri described a favorite periwinkle blue dress with black polka dots that had me crying with laughter. The woman I know would faint in fright if she awoke wearing that dress. “Get it off! Get it off,” she’d scream, as if it was a spider.

For two people who spend most of their lives wearing black thermal shirts and blue jeans, it was delicious to trace our past lives through the costumes we’ve worn. The people we were. The investments we made. The colors we donned.

What was sacred is now profoundly silly. What was serious is now grin-worthy. What seemed so important turned out to be so-much-powder.

“Time just rolls. It just keeps rolling,” she said. The hard times and the good times. Hang on long enough and what-is will become what-was and a new-thing will have replaced the previous thing. “It just rolls on through.” At 3am, what matters in life could not be more clear. It’s the conversation. The laughter at our foibles, the sweet, “Shall we try and get some sleep?” It’s what we will see of this age when time rolls on and, late one sleepless night, we look back.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOOKING BACK