A New Year

What are you going to call it? "Two thousand eleven" or "Twenty-Eleven"? 

I'm going with Twenty-Eleven, because a) I said Twenty-Ten all of last year and b) I never once said One thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.

As for the decade between, I was fond of "Aught" as in, Gemma was born in "Aught-Three."

As for our weekend?  I say: Forget Spring Cleaning.  What you need to do is re-arrange a lot of furniture and change the entire function of a few of your spaces.  This is what we tried, and 72 hours later, there are several corners that have been vacuumed for the first time in, well. . .the point is that we've accomplished a lot.

I'm not sure what that means to Bryan.  In a practical sense, it means we finally decided how to use our basement space and our office space and so furniture is finally serving the right purpose in the right place.  It is impossible to describe how pleased this makes me.  We spend a lot of time in this house.  We do a lot here.  It feels great to know that we are using this space well.

Does Bryan feel this, too?  As recently as the Fall of Aught-Nine, when Sister #1 was here to help, the basement was to be/was already in part 'Bryan's Room.'  Including huge display cases full of various combat helmets.  We even asked Sister #1 for her opinion as to what would look nice hanging where--the ink sketch of the panzer launching shells over there or here?  The sign written in French, translated, "Place of Lt. Duplume, killed by the Germans, 1903-1944" on this wall or that one? 

By the following Spring, I had asked Bryan if he would move out of the basement and make way for a homeschool and kids-toys space.  To his credit, he said, "Sure."  And it's not because he couldn't say "no" to cancer--this was after most of the treatment was finished.  He gave up his man-cave because that's the kind of sacrificing guy he is. 

Is he as pleased as I that our home better-ordered?  His answer: "I'm pleased that you're pleased."

When he goes to his office, his cubicle can look exactly as he wants it to.

Now, a couple months shy of a year later, we have finished the last stage of moving stuff.  The kids asked me, when I began this last stage on Friday, "Why are you changing those?"  (e.g. moving the trunk from the foot of our bed downstairs in exhcanging for two small tables that are now upstairs) and I said, "Because I'm stir crazy!"

"What's that?"

"It's what I am right now!"

Why so ready for change?  I've been trying to put my finger on it.

A few specific notes on our labors--

In some ways, Bryan is a Man of Action living the life of a Man with a Wife and Kids.  Are all men like this?  I find it slips out when he sets about tasks that pose a physical challenge.  (For Bryan, these are not "tasks."  As in, twenty minutes ago when we came upstairs to turn it for the night, he said, "I've shut down basement operations for the day.") 

So, yes, the "slipping out" -- as in, when he was reaching under the stair railing to unscrew it and make way for the heavy top of the postal sorting table we were wrestling to the basement, he said, to the rail, I presume, "Come on, baby. . ."  Like an action hero trying to finesse a hot wire in order to make a last second escape.  Only it was a railing.  And two screws.  And all the time he needed. . .

Another example:  We were about to start moving the bottom half of that same postal sorting table.  It was crazy heavy.  Cumbersome, of course.  We knew it would be tricky to wind it all the way down.  As we put hands on to life it, Bryan said, "OK, boys and girls, let's rock and roll." 

I think all of this is adorable. 

Today included switching out some bookshelves in Joshua's room. I found on his shelf, tucked to the side, The Pied Piper of Hamelin.  Do you know this whole story? 

The piper leads the rats away to drown in the river, sure.  But did you know that goes to the mayor to collect the payment that had been agreed upon and that the mayor would not pay up?  The piper warned him, but the mayor wouldn't--the rats were dead and gone, why should he? 

So the piper played again and lead all the children of the village out, into the hills, through a mysterious door in a mountain, which then shut behind them.  None of those parents ever saw their children again.

How's that for a fairy tale?

Gemma and Joshua were suitably horrified.  Not quite freaked out.  But definitely uneasy.  Josh especially. 

And yet, here I find the book in its own special space on his shelf (when there are lots of other places we keep books that he could have ditched it).  It was as though he found comfort in keeping an eye on the thing that told about what would be most horrible. 

My own shelves?  Yes, I've been sorting like crazy.  Pitching a lot.  Re-organizing.  I came across the booklets and pamphlets about chemotherapy, and how to love the person who's doing chemotheraphy, and Herceptin, and Radiation, and. . .all of it.  I put it into a banker's box instead of pitching it, telling myself that one day (soon, I think) I will try to write a book about this, and I will want these patient "resources" to make fun of.  I added to the box the giant bag of cards and notes and letters so many sent to me.  The pictures Mom drew for the recovery after my first surgery that illustrated for the kids "Mommy's sleeping" (for my door) and "Hugs This Way" (for the trunk at the foot of my bed, that I have just swapped out for two small tables) that directed them to approach me on the side that wasn't healing.  I put my wigs into the box.  My hats, too, except for the 2 baseball caps my aunt bought for me that I like so much. 

The lid barely fit.

Gemma saw this box and asked what it was.  Why I was saving those books.  I couldn't answer her without choking up.  Done with it, yes.  But, like that book Josh put aside on his shelf, there's something about this box that needs a spot in our storage closet, right where I know it is. 

Happy New Year.