I organize when I’m anxious. Clutter and piles make it hard for me to think, and when I hit that emotional overload, the only thing that seems to ease the tension is a top-to-bottom reorganization of a space. Usually, this is my office, as while I am not a fan of clutter, I create clutter. I may have cleaned and reorganized three rooms of our house for ten hours yesterday, but I also just left my lunch mess on the kitchen counter to deal with later. So, I’m inconsistent, as most humans are, I guess.
The attic was my first victim this weekend. It’s a strange, semi-livable space that Sid once used as his bedroom and is now my husband’s office. Previous owners blew out the dormers and finished it with flooring, insulation, and electrical, but no heat. And when I say, “blew out the dormers,” I mean they created one sliver of space where an adult over 5’ 2” can stand upright, but the rest of the ceiling slants at such an angle that you will inevitably crack your head if you stand up too fast or walk without thinking. My skull has made contact with the attic ceiling more times than I can remember, and perhaps I can’t remember because I’ve hit my head so many times.
My husband’s office is only part of the attic space. The rest has been full of boxes and dumped belongings. Stuff from my classroom that I’m not sure what to do with. Many, many items from Sid’s tiny bedroom that I’ve ferried out when helping him clean. I threw away a lot, donated much more, and boxed and housed what was left. Then I carried the pieces of Emmet’s old IKEA bed up the not-up-to-code and insanely tight spiral staircase and reassembled it in the only area that could accommodate the height.
While rifling through the crap that I’d left there (likely from when I was decluttering my office, go figure), I uncovered two boxes of letters. I love letters. I never get them anymore because it seems as though no one thinks about them these days. They’re on my mind because I write Sid a card daily. While I hate that I have to write to him, I also relish the nostalgia of making my handwriting legible and the freedom to print photos, doodle, and pretend that the internet doesn’t exist.
But back to the boxes of letters. One box was filled with notes from my husband – many from before we were married, then all of the cards he has given me since. I have the first flower he ever sent to my office and the initial email that I received from him – a cold intro – that convinced me to take a very unlike-me leap of faith and meet him in person. I also found a box of letters from around the world and a good chunk from Brooklyn that contained…wait for it…cat whiskers.
My present-day friends may want to reconsider their decision to associate with me, and I get that. But I’ll give you all a little context first, just in case you are still paying attention.
I love cats. I love their whiskers. They’re weird and kind of pretty if you look at them closely. Finding one is like finding a feather or a penny. I almost always know which cat it came from in our house. At some point in my 20s, I just started saving them. I must not have vacuumed much back then. And at some point during that same period, I had an idea: if I asked the internet to send me their found (not plucked) cat whiskers, would they do it? The answer, my friends, is yes. The internet delivered.
I love very few things about technology, but this project was one of them. I received cards with cat whiskers, photos of cats, names of cats, etc., from Portugal, Argentina, London, Spain, and all over the United States. Family sent them. Friends. But mostly strangers. It was weird and wonderful. I had grand dreams of creating an online exhibit but ran out of time and energy. I did, however, save the letters. If you sent me one, I still have it.
What’s the point of me revealing this potentially embarrassing but fully embraced in a let-your-weird-hang-out kind of way information? Most of my writing up until this point has been sad. It’s me reminding myself, and maybe you, if you are also going through it, that things will eventually not feel quite as dark. I feel that daily. But little by little I remember the things that have made me happy. I include cats and whiskers on that list, but mostly it was the strange but wonderful interactions I had via snail mail with strangers about cats. Collectively, we used the internet to not be on the internet, which I think is a lost art.
Don’t worry – I’m not asking you for a cat whisker. Unless you want to send one, in which case, I might consider it. I’m just reminding you that we are all human. So many of my connections over the last two years have been around pain, and I’ve needed that, but it’s awfully nice to be reminded that, sometimes, we find commonalities and friendships in the oddest of places.
object of memory 