In the Clearing

by Francine Puckly

​After several stumbles, a close-call coming through the ceiling, and one broken finger, I decided it was high time we installed a floor in our attic instead of walking around on beams and occasional planks we strategically placed to hold our storage boxes. Having the floor installed meant I had to clear a space for the workers to lay at least half of the floor before shifting everything to the other side to install the rest. And clearing the space meant I had to come to terms with stacks of empty cardboard boxes we were saving for storage and gift giving, boxes and bags of baby clothes and blankets from my 14- and 11-year-old children I couldn’t part with years ago, and hoards of holiday decorations teetering on disaster. 

Anyone who has tackled 900 square feet of clutter knows the heart palpitations it can inflict. And I put this off until the last bitter moment when I received the call from the contractor saying he would be there first thing the next morning.

To fully understand the level of my anxiety when surrounded by so many boxes, let’s be clear that my grandmother, God rest her soul, was a full-fledged, Guinness-World-Records-setting pack rat. The one memory I have of her two-bedroom townhouse (the rest of them I’ve clearly blocked) is my walking through a box-filled kitchen into a box-filled family room with an 18-inch path to navigate to the stairs (lined with boxes) to use the bathroom (also filled with boxes). In fact, the day my mother and father arrived to move my grandmother, she had done no packing or sorting. My mother sat down on the front step and bawled, overwhelmed with the task in front of her that had to be completed eight short hours. Years later as I assessed the attic mess in front of me, I finally understood my mother’s anxiety and was sobered by the fact that I had done this to myself. While I had not hoarded quite as much as my grandmother, I still had a seemingly insurmountable task in front of me.

No coward soul am I, Emily Brontë whispered in my ear. So up to the overheated attic I went. I started by chucking 47 empty boxes from the corner—which we desperately missed this past holiday season…who knew?—and the cats and kids ran for their lives as they dodged falling objects from the attic opening. This was followed by pulling down twelve boxes of baby clothes, several old window blinds and curtain rods stored years ago “just in case”, a giant box of my baby clothes from several decades earlier, fourteen years of my children’s artwork, boxes of letters received from friends and family in high school and college, and several boxes of holiday decorations that hadn’t been used in at least six years. Ruthlessly I sorted, sorted, sorted. So much collected over the years because I couldn’t make decisions.

In the writing world, I have done this to myself as well. I’ve hung onto old drafts of manuscripts because I might need to refer to them “some day”, and I’ve collected stacks of craft books, notes from teachings and lectures, and magazine articles which are old news at this point in my career. I hang onto these collections as if they will provide some sort of solace in the days, weeks or years to come. They won’t.

I finished the attic in November, and keeping with the notorious theme of the New Year—a time to clear, de-clutter and organize—I have set out to conquer my ever-expanding writing space with cute folders and boxes, and, more importantly, the recycling bin. Do I need it? Do I love it? Do I use it? 

So as I belt out, “Should all manuscripts be forgot, and never thought upon…”, I clear the space and open the way for new ideas and new writing in this New Year.