MAY 7, 2020 – I’ve lost track of the days, let alone hours, I’ve spent on my Garage Clean-up Project—not to mention the times I’ve cited it on this blog. I’m so deep into the project I’ll suffer the bends if I emerge too quickly. Apparently garage clean-ups and clean-outs have become the new norm. Yesterday, a friend of mine who’d been cleaning out his garage reported that on Monday he’d encountered over 50 vehicles in line at the local drop-off center for hazardous household waste.
Outside our garage is a growing heap of junk headed for the contractor/owner’s dumpster by the house across the alley from ours (the contractor/owner said I could do so; I’ll wait until he himself, not just his crew, is present so neighbors don’t think I’m free-loading). Reserved for the haz mat center: rusty cans of unusable paint, an old fuel container with suspect contents, and the ancient, half-full (“half empty”? – see my May 4 post) bag of lawn fertilizer, which I’ll never use given how bad it is (was!) for the environment.
But unpacking junk is mere prologue. The main story is the process by which everything is rearranged. While the outside rages beyond my control, I’ve immersed myself in the possibilities unleashed within the zone I can control. I take time, space, stuff, sundry tools and supplies and experiment . . . like a sculptor in a well-stocked studio.
“What if I turn [such-and-such] object sideways and store it there?” I’ll ask. Or, “What if I used some of that scrap lumber under the bench to build a funky frame for the tall mirror that’s been stored for a decade behind those cartons?” Or, “What if I hang next to the workbench, these paintings—in this . . . or that . . . arrangement?” Or “What’s the best way to store tools that gets them accessible yet out of the way?” Or “What gets used the most vs. what never gets used . . . and if it never gets used, why is it being saved? . . . or better yet, what is that, and if you don’t know, then why is it being saved . . . or best yet with everything, ‘What would Picasso do?’”
The path is full of diversions. One fanciful idea can turn into its own three-day project involving the long-forgotten sawhorses, a treasure hunt for the perfect combination of scrap lumber, and an hours-long search among stashes of fasteners—and wholesale reorganization of same. Some “ideas” turn into meditative devices deployed far from the garage itself. During my daily power walk deep into “Little Switzerland,” I’ll work over the design and construction possibilities regarding one sub-project or another, utilitarian or decorative.
As I delight in this work I often consider people less fortunate—apartment dwellers and . . . as I began to observe many years ago, conservatives, whose discomfiture with ambiguity and its harsh possibilities, ensures tidy garages free from “jumble fever” and its whimsical probabilities.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
