curbside curves

Sorry for not posting in over a week. I back dated the previous post to Fridays date. Since the news of Osama bin Laden's death (assassination?) I have been contemplating past memories and sorting out present feelings. I sort of lost my sharing, writing bug. I went into a cocoon of self-consciousness but I am over it now. So here we go, beginning once again...

curbside curves

On the way to work I noticed someone had put an old computer desk out by the garbage. It was one of those build it yourself, generic, laminated fiberboard desks. I began to wonder about the story of the discarded desk. I wondered who built it and why. I wondered about the study done and the knowledge gained. I wondered about the feeling the owner had the day they bought the desk and the time it took to build it. Did the owner ever think a day would come when it would be put out on the curb as garbage? I bet they didn't and that is the point that really stuck out to me. When we buy something new we never think about the day when we are going to say goodbye. When we buy
something we never think about the object breaking or becoming one day discarded.

I remember when I was little I had one of those toy play kitchens; it had a sink, stove and fridge. There are pictures of me unwrapping it at Christmas and stories of how excited I was. It had play dishes and fake food, everything you could need. Oddly enough I don't have any memory of playing with it but I do remember when I was much older helping hauling it out of the basement and setting it out to the curb for spring cleaning garbage pickup. There was a sticky spot in the sink from some experiment of mine gone awry, neglect had cast a thick film of dust upon it; it was no longer what it once was. Seeing that desk made me think how objects bought in a moment of time, are for a moment in time. Sometimes purchases are suspended in the moment of purchase and they can't move forward with time; A play kitchen gives way to the real kitchen, a fixed desk gives way to the mobile laptop. So much of our life can become wrapped up in objects and so many objects ultimately end up curbside. Some acquisitions don't last, they aren't meant to.

There is another angle to the curbside tale: one persons trash is another persons treasure. Sometimes things set curbside get a second chance at life. The play kitchen never made it to the dump, at least not on this curbside visit. Someone came and took it for their little one to play with. What is no longer useful to one person can be needed by another. My mom's recent move caused us to go through a lot of stuff, deciding whether it was donation, keepsake, or garbage. The joy of letting things go and giving stuff to those in need was one of the most freeing things I have experienced in a long time.

In life there are curves and curbs; maybe there are something things you need to put curbside and maybe life has thrown you some curves you need allow yourself to recover from. xo