Ten-Finger Exercises

Finding things new and old.

"A place for everything and everything in its place." I can feel the tension grow in my shoulders as I even think those words. So easy to say, so hard to do. Oh come on, isn't it hard for everybody? Evidently not.

My mother said it so often I was sure it would be true for her. I didn't see things out of place in her house, and maybe they weren't in her younger, healthier years. It wasn't true later. The neat desk top belied the random contents neatly fitted in the drawers. Worse, she had no idea what was in the drawers. But she had a reason for it: advanced Parkinsons disease.

I have things on high shelves I've completely forgotten I have. Back when I moved often, courtesy of the Air Force, I found the contents of my kitchen junk drawer from a previous move still packed in a box in my garage. Out of site, out of mind. If I can't find something I know I have, like the cookbook that came with my old blender and had such a great recipe for gazpacho in it, I'm sure it's around here somewhere. I'll make do without it, but sure wish I'd find it. It told you the order to put the things in the blender, and it always worked. Without it, well, not the same.

Pondering ways to organize that ubiquitous kitchen drawer, I once thought about itemizing its contents and calling my friends to take a poll on where they keep those same things.

Do you have a junk drawer of memories? And frequent needs for other memories you can't think where you've filed? I'm sure the names and the dates and the facts are there somewhere. But if they're not near the front of the cupboard or haven't been used lately, well, there's no telling where they might be.

Do you ever wonder why you remember such strange pieces of trivia and can't remember things that ought to be important? The best answer I've heard is that the mind is like a person walking on the beach, picking up shells and bits of driftwood. Who knows why we pick the ones we do and leave the others?