Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Packing all your things for a massive move is about as much fun as getting a splinter. Actually, I did get a splinter while packing.
Actually, actually, it was prior to packing when I was showing off my broken puke-gold Salvation Army couch to a friend while I told her it’s not coming with me.
It’s coming with me.
It’s amazing how tenaciously we cling to some items that are broken, useless or eaten by moths.
The moth-eaten cowboy hat purchased as a joke at a yard sale is not coming.
Since I’m an artist, I also have a fine array of busted car parts, shards of colored somethings and scraps of a prom dress found in a Brooklyn trash bin.
At least two bulging boxes are stuffed with things found on the side of New York City streets and in Tucumcari hay fields (where I spent a lot of time by a gutted out car).
I may need these things for one of my creations.
The prom dress scrap is coming.
I must admit, however, I have become a little more creative with my packing since my average yearly move, or AYP, is on the rise (three this year).
No, that doesn’t mean I’ve learned to — egads! — throw things away, but it means I have become fine tuned in the art of making it seem like some of the junk is vital. For instance, the prom dress scrap worked nicely wrapping the 902 coffee mugs during transport.
And 602 of the coffee mugs (even the cracked ones) are needed to contain the 8,431 Sharpie markers during transport.
Of course, the car parts can weigh down the boxes that are way too light and may fly away off the U-Haul, like those stuffed with pillows.
The pillows, in turn, serve to protect the 94 pieces of hanging art, even the ones that have shattered, as parts of them may be used for a future creation.
The broken glass is coming.
Thankfully, all those really nostalgic things are somewhere in my mom’s Michigan basement so I need not worry about defiling memories by chucking a size one bronze shoe or my first baby tooth.
Pulled wisdom teeth from 1992 are coming.
Packing clothes is a whole other phenomenon. Back to the nostalgia, there is really no way anyone could throw away a T-shirt from NYC hot spot Alcatraz that closed 10 years ago or the first pair of pants I hand-painted when leggings were still in or a baseball cap from Tucumcari Ranch Supply.
It would be like throwing away part of yourself, like teeth or something.
There is also the pair of combat boots with barely any soles that served me back in 1988 in my first days in New York.
Or the other pair of combat boots with barely any soles that look the same as the other pair and may be the ones that served me back in 1988 in my first days in New York.
Both pairs are coming
Then there are the clothes that have long surpassed the two-year rule — a bright orange 1950’s swimsuit, a blue knit poncho (that belonged to my grandma), a bright pink fleece jacket with fuzzy crap around the hood. (The latter I really tried to give away to my Brooklyn neighbor, but when she actually liked it I got all panicky and wanted it back, as if I were just giving away something really really cool.)
Although I will probably never wear said items, they are fun to have around and add a vital splash of color to my mostly all-black wardrobe.
The swimsuit, the poncho, the hot pink are coming.
But I promise I’m not taking along the yard sale moth-eaten cowboy hat.
Unless I think of a way it might serve in a future creation.
Ryn Gargulinski recently moved from Tucumcari to Crescent City, Calif. Contact her at:
