Series One/Post Four -- Jacki and Will’s Basement 

At night I have dreams of old photos and negatives marching, dust-free, into neat boxes and giving up the ghost of free-fire zones past. Old love letters still make me smile -- my God, people had sauce and they didn’t care what they said. All that hand-writing... no wonder these tweeted male and female ‘dudes’ are so bored -- I can still feel the heat coming off of some of these scraps of paper. 

But will we ever... ever be free of the past? We’re still under siege with it in this house. I swear that if I had not married my husband, he would be one of those people who watch as papers pile up around him. Then, one day it’s over -- they tag your toe, and out you go and the papers are dumped. Is that any way to think about the man I love? This cleaning & sorting business is unhinging me. If Caitlin were not in our lives, I would have taken the train back to New York and never returned, no matter how lovely our garden.

I wish I had been able to measure how much detritus is here. Last week, I unearthed my husband’s old Santa Letter and it went to ‘Found’ Magazine. “Dear Santa,” it said. “I want four Creepy Crawler sets with four extra bottles of black plastigoop. Also the board game Stratego. I have been a very good boy.”

We drove to Rockville in heavy rain -- it’s miles from our house -- to go to the Container Store. For me, that store now is kind of like church: all those little vessels to save our souls. Our records don’t begin to fit in the crates marked for ‘records’, but -- these people have probably never seen a record. For the record, it’s black and round and encased in colorful cardboard, often larger than this 14 inch thing you sell for eight dollars.

BEFORE... and AFTER