If I can hide out here in the shop, I may be able to post more entries today. I am avoiding the house. A couple hours ago my husband ran in here to tell me that there’s an inch of water in the furnace room, and of course the water crept into the one room where I store my life. Photos, papers, large yeast barrels containing my first twenty years; you know, the irreplaceable stuff. I called the plumber and moved boxes. J mopped as much as he could, but there are rugs down there (“yes, dear, I know we probably should have pulled them out when we moved in fourteen years ago…”).
The plumber has, for $144, fixed yet another pinhole leak we get from copper pipes and hard water (tasty, though!), and happily didn’t charge us for the fifteen minutes he spent tasting the various hot sauces my husband brought out for him to try on a bag of taco chips. After the plumber left, I sent J on his way as well. I can’t face the cellar right now–not the cleanup work, but the ruined memories of who I am, or was, or ever wanted to be.
Some things that were destroyed I must say I am happy about, for packratting is also among my many sins. Five years’ worth of overrun traditional archery magazines that I produced and just couldn’t throw away are, I believe, useless and now must be tossed. At least fifteen years’ worth of bank statements are gone as well, and thankfully a similar cellar flooding in a previous home took care of another twenty years.
Creatively, I cannot face the cellar now, but perhaps it will generate a story. Will that do?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology