Annual yard sale in the borough lends opportunity for organization.
By: Linda Schuster
All winter long I eagerly await the merry, merry month of May. I become giddy toward the end of April squirreling through the kids’ bedrooms. You can hear me giggling in the back of their closets on a rainy afternoon.
"Where’s Mom? Has anyone seen Mommy?" (pause, pause).
"Tee, hee, hee!"
"Oh, NO! Mom, What are you putting my stuff in that bag for? You CAN’T get rid of THAT! It’s my FAVORITE!!"
Yes, May is when we hold the Saturday townwide yard sale. It’s a tradition in Roosevelt for abolishing old belongings, creating more space in the house and garage.
Ah, space, glorious space.
Quite a commodity. Any owner of an original Roosevelt home is acquainted with an existence devoid of basement or attic. It’s true. We’re quite proud of our finely-honed storage skills. Let’s just say that Tupper Totes abound at my house.
Linen closets? Well if you want to put one in somewhere, be my guest. Otherwise it’s under the bed or piled-up here and there.
I used to create leaning sculptures in various corners of my villa. Lean Art emerged as the technique that allowed all of my family’s extra stuff to appear as though it belonged out in the open. A mode of self-expression.
You know the looming motherload of toys that accumulate. The multiplying bike helmets, skateboards and other sports riffraff that lands all over the place. Similar to the debris following a tornado.
Everyday.
I grew weary of the endless monologue, "Hey you, (insert name), does the (blank)room look like a closet? This is not the place to drop your (insert paraphernalia). Pick it up and put it away."
Oh brother, after umpteen years that speech wears thin on everyone’s ears, including mine.
I decided that I could not spend the rest of my literal life picking up after people. If that was the way it was going to be, why fight it? Yeah, that’s what I would do, go with the flow.
Why not DESIGN the junk in my family room into a cohesive decor? The sports equipment theme was already active. If you stand the hockey sticks up, criss-crossed, of course, and drape the shin guards from right to left accented by a helmet, umm … there, the dirty socks actually pull it all together at the bottom.
Even I was amazed at what I could do once my energies got going. Baseball mitts coordinate well with jerseys strewn about the room. And fresh mud falling from cleats add a certain touch that says, "It’s outta the park!"
Barbie dolls, baby dolls, NSync gear. Backpacks, Beanie Babies, trophy of the year. Sweatshirts and shoes for every season and any reason. Videos, CDs, DVDs, XYZs.
OK, so that’s the kids.
To be fair, I admit to possessing my own breed of junk. Teeming heaps of books, magazines, photos and papers roost on innumerable surfaces in my home. I built a fence. Yet they continue to escape, fluttering about at will.
I fashioned them into a library of sorts in a fruitless attempt at disguise. However, the inherent fire hazard could not be debated and the shelves were clearly needed for more practical items. Computers, telephones and such.
So I reorganized. Most of it is now away from view. I carted bags of useless garbage out of the house and I really feel more settled in my newly-structured environment. It’s a less cluttered, more pleasant place to be.
The effect is so agreeable, I wish I could keep it this way. I momentarily considered assigning each child to tidy up the bedroom of one other sibling. We could choose names from a Yankees cap.
Maybe my spouse and I should purge each other’s stuff. This place would be clean as a referee’s whistle.
Linda Schuster is a freelance writer living in Roosevelt, who junk-swapped minimally last Saturday.