White Elephants

Not too long ago my sister and I were cleaning out the basement which is filled from floor to ceiling with random things.  At the lower levels is the grime of twenty years of neglect.  Dust and dirt that has collected and dampened with every rainstorm.  Piled on top of that are cardboard boxes filled with clothing and toys-an 8 year old's wool sweater, a porcelain doll's ghost face and glassy eyes staring up at you as you exhume her.  There are board games-Monopoly, Life, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, and sporting equipment-an old pair of rusty ice-skates-turned spider's home.  On top of that are garbage bags filled with soft things-blankets, pillows, the yellow sunflower bedspread from the old daybed, and shoddy stuffed animals-all the prizes from the carnival games we worked so hard to win.  Next are all the kitchen appliances and cookware that don't have a permanent place in the kitchen.  There is a white garbage bag filled and spilling over with Christmas cookie tins-tools for the annual cookie party which takes place the night before Christmas Eve.  A set of stoneware soup crocks, an anniversary gift, have attempted a balancing act upon a blanket bag and lost-unlucky acrobats-their appendages lay in pieces.  A ten pound Dutch oven crushes its foundation-a fool builds his house on sand.  There are brownie pans, spring pans, loaf pans, an ice cream maker used once, and a waffle maker.  About waist high is an old computer desk with the first computer ever made-Sim City and Arkanoid haunt the hard drive.  Old photographs of people I don't know or remember-remnants of a life lived before me.  More artifacts of the life before me hang from the wall-Daddy's Mexican straw mask that used to be frightening but now is just sad, an Australian boomerang.  Against the walls is Grandma's furniture-preserved and mummified in a layer of sticky plastic.  A box spring reaching almost to the ceiling, bookshelves filled with fundamentalism.  A bar littered with books and paper.  A briefcase.  An old candy box turned art project with a small treasure inside- crisp white pages of his writing- Daddy's writing.  The Jimmy Long stories that he wrote and read to us-little girls-two twin beds-Jimmy Long's face come to life in my mind-Jimmy Long flying a kite on a Manhattan rooftop-Jimmy Long as my Dad-a little boy with a kite.

We packed up the box, labeled it, and set it back in its place.  We haven't tried to clean the basement again.