the future of junk and a mountain remembrance

A couple weeks ago I was in my brother’s garage in suburban Philadelphia. It is completely packed with junk. But the kind of “junk” you don’t want to throw away. Old chairs, parts of dining room tables, a partially restored snow blower, a few tires – slicks from dragsters – lots of bicycle parts, old beds, all kinds of odds and ends that were cleared out of the house, purchased at garage sales, or are awaiting fixing as they hang from the rafters and pile up on an old couch. I like junk, myself. I have a lot in my garage. I like the possibility of repair, reuse, and creative repurposing, and I suppose it also plays to my (weak) undercurrent of Yankee frugality. But what the garage is really full of is dreaming. The whole place is full of “Someday…” All these mysterious and foggy plans we have that float through our brain, plans we share or hide from our spouse. Plans that flow with the tide of your relationship, and plans that absolutely go against the current. Dreams that wait behind the practicalities of your daily life, the obligations, the intrusions, the indecision, the group efforts; waiting to be played out, to change, so that you’ll have time, “Someday…”. I suppose that the not uncommon garage full of stuff hit me in this way because when Rosina died, that hazy bank of dreams disappeared. You couldn’t even watch it blow away, it just evaporated. All the maybes and the somedays not even holding enough shape to be carried somewhere, just gone. But it didn’t clean the garage. So there you are, as you stand before all that suddenly unspirited stuff, faced not with the possibility and the dream, but with a pile of junk. And it’s okay to throw it away. It’s okay to clean your future.


In August we were lucky enough to go to our friends Gerry and Kit’s place outside Telluride Colorado. My entire immediate family, parents, siblings, cousins, made it and we had a great time. It is a place of dramatic geography and open skies and was quite welcome. It was the first time we had all been together since last winter, and in fact, I don’t think we were all together last winter at any one time, so longer than that. Gerry and Kit had put up some Tibetan prayer flags on the edge of the mesa, the escarpment, and the flags flew there for Rosina. The idea is that there are thousands of prayers written on the flags and the wind blows through and carries them off like milkweed, endlessly.

It seemed like a good place and time to do something. Toward the end of our stay I had everyone find a small rock and write their name on it and we went out by the flags to pay tribute to the girl.

As the sun was setting on the mountain range across from us, we placed our rocks in the pile that held up the flags. We then had a long moment of silence. I eventually broke the silence with the Brazilian birthday cheer, and then others chimed in with their warm memories and caring regrets. We didn’t just lose Peter’s wife, we lost a mother, an aunt, a sister, a daughter. Disbelief still rings through even as you discuss the reality.

I have to share something I am so grateful for, the image of her face that I carry is nothing but bright and shining, a full smile.

Finally my nephew Dan sang a song he had written with a friend on a beach in Mexico, full of sweet farewells and sights and sounds perfectly suited for Rosina. It was a good moment and we’re all glad we did it. If somehow you end up there, please add a rock.



xo
ph