Detritus

Through this winter I've been tackling the downstairs. Because I've decided to live alone rather than rent out one of the bedrooms, the cleaning hasn't seemed as urgent as it did in the past.  I take time to reflect. Today I'm thinking about the little bits of Who-Will-Was that still inhabit the house. When I run across these bits and bobs, I sometimes cry, sometimes feel a weight on my chest, and sometimes just go, "hmmm."

For example, these pencils.

He never left a library without stealing a pencil, just as he never left a bank or a hotel room without a pen in his pocket.  I found these in a basket of detritus - tape, paper clips, glue stick, others odds and ends.

The basket itself was a reminder of one of the several times I decided to clean up and organize our space as stuff started to proliferate like tribbles, which, as everyone knows, are trouble.

The downstairs is mostly filled with a lot of MY stuff -- bits of unfinished art projects, books that survived the first three prunings but are still questionable as to the reasonableness of their presence in my space.

I've also been rearranging the kitchen due to my ongoing recognition of my height-challenged status. In doing so, I ran across what Will called the "Heirloom Fudge Pan".  I used to bake brownies (with and without) and poured fudge into this pan.  It has a small wound from the time the fudge I made was so hard that I pounded the knife to cut it. Seeing this pan makes me think of Will and all the times he enjoyed the fudge I produced after the tedious process of waiting for balls of chocolate to form when dropped into cool water.