John and I have been tackling the basement. You know, the room where all the junk is. The room that stores the Christmas and Hannukah decorations, the old t.v., the extraordinarily heavy window mounted air conditioner that I refuse to let John get rid of because if it gets hot enough in Seattle to need one, you won't be able to find one. The back room stores not just my old college papers but all the papers and books and student papers from my previous career as a college writing teacher. We had no idea what was in each box, and we couldn't get to them anyway.

Getting rid of some of the stuff was easy--John found a bag of t-shirts that will either rejoin his life or be given away. I think he's going to do the same with a box of magic materials. We decided to move a card table upstairs for easier access. We got rid of a card table (left by our previous tenant 10 years ago) that was rusty and rickety. I got rid of cancelled checks from 1989. All those calendars I kept I took upstairs to cut into Valentine's. The box of diaries went back on a shelf.

Some of the stuff was not so easy. I got rid of a bag of gi belts left over from when I did aikido. I did aikido for 15 years. It was a major part of my life. Maybe I'll get back on the mat someday. Not only is it wasteful to rebuy belts, but these were beautifully broken in. On the other hand, I am a black belt now. I keep that one upstairs.

I got rid of conference proceedings that I'm pretty sure I never looked at in the first place, but I'm not completely sure I will never need again. I emptied out a three ring binder from a student I had my very first teaching job. She had never collected it at the end of the class, and it was a nice historical record of everything we covered. But, I know I had never referenced it in designing my 15 years of subsequent classes. It was time to let it go. I probably will teach again. I am trying really hard to figure out which materials will help me do so--course packets with assignments and examples, composition textbooks, examples of student work--and let go of the ones I don't need--old course packets, composition textbooks, examples of student work. You see my problem.

Still, just today I took two boxes filled with stuff like that and reduced it to one.