5/22/11 BY ME 4 THE3SIX5

On a whim, I said yes. Now, granted, sometimes this sort of agreeing with things can get you into trouble, but this time I think it went OK. Last night as I was drifting my eyes rather lazily through my Twitter-info-stream, I saw that the3six5 were looking for a writer to contribute a piece immediately. The project is a very interesting one: every day, a different author writes a 365-word essay about something going on in their particular universe and also provides a related photograph. I had thought previously about applying to write an entry for them, but it drifted off my radar, as so many interesting things do, sadly. So, when I saw the call I thought, yeah, 365 words right away about something I did today?... NO PROB, I'M IN. I'm all about the little moments kind of thing. I was kindly accepted and published and you can see it here in their May 2011 archives along with my other fellow May-ers. Even more kindly, they allow me to re-publish the piece here, so I shall, because I can. You can keep up with the project on Twitter @the3six5 and if you are interested in writing an entry yourself, there seems to be a few openings left for the year. Be whimmy -- apply!


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One good thing I can say about our incessant rains here in Seattle is that they indeed bring bright blooms of pink and red and purple and yellow flowers in the spring, the colors a welcome relief after months of somber grayness. I can see them through my front window now, as close as I will get to nature today as this Sunday has been designated for Spring Cleaning. I’ve spent the day reorganizing our family video library, a task I return to every few years as my children grow and technology beckons me to replace tapes with DVDs, then with better DVDs. The collection takes up all of a huge black media hutch; I am determined to weed, whittle down, de-clutter.

The bottom two shelves in the hutch hold all the kids’ movies, many passed down on wobbly VHS from my 19-year-old son to my 13-year-old son, to, finally, my 8-year-old daughter. I stare at the titles on the spines of the tapes. Today’s the day, Barney and The Wiggles and Maisy and Care Bears. My last child is too old for you all now; off to Goodwill you shall go. I hesitate slightly as I put some of the tapes in a white garbage bag ready to take to the donation truck. Would they ever want to see these later on when they are adults? Would they care? I glance over at the bootleg DVDs of the ‘60s-era Beatles cartoons I hungrily obtained a few years ago. I can’t, I think, I can’t keep everything, as much as it is my nature to do so. I stop thinking about it and keep putting them in the bag.

I am annoyed to find a large stack of unmarked, dusty VHS tapes in a drawer near the hutch. Oh, great, now I’ll have to look at every one of these before I can toss them. More work. I pop the first one in the dual VHS/DVD player over the flatscreen, and I see the face of my 13-year-old, at a birthday party at age two. I watch silently, both smiling and sad.

I remove one Maisy tape out of the garbage bag, and set it aside.