HOARDING, PURGING, AND ROCKING ON

I'm not really sure how many musical instruments one person is supposed to own when the only instrument she is semi-adept at is voice.  Kind of makes the instruments unnecessary.

I suppose people could call me a hoarder.   I'm certainly not as bad as I used to be nor as good as I could be.  I'm a semi-hoarder. 

I had to cancel my subscription to National Geographic a long time ago because I kept all the maps that came tucked inside each issue.  It seemed less horrifying to me never to see the maps at all rather than to covet them.  I also tended to keep the magazines.  I remember my father had collections of National Geographic that went back years and years.  What does one do with them?  Truly?  Is a 1962 article on Burma really still relevant in any way now?

I did manage to go through my maps (not as many National Geographic ones as I feared).  I discovered that I have (but do not need) multiple AAA maps for about fifteen states, mostly along the Atlantic, dozens for the New England area, several repeat maps from Quebec, and two street maps of downtown Philadelphia, a place I'm reasonably sure I never want to visit ever again (but probably will because, hey, I kept one map).  I also discovered that the magazine maps could be handed off to various coworkers: ancient maps to the history teachers, regional maps to the geography teachers, star chart maps to the science teachers, and I'll keep the Mars maps for when we study Ray Bradbury.

Bingo.  One problem solved.

This still leaves me with the musical instruments issue.  I'm keeping the electric piano because I can still read music and do occasionally actually turn the piano on for shits and giggles.  I'm also keeping the recorders because who really needs a wooden recorder other than me, the plastic ones are decades old, and you never know when you'll need to pretend you're part of Led Zeppelin. 

My brother, a teacher in upstate New York (the REAL upstate New York, up near Montreal, not that make-believe upstate crap in Syracuse), is a former marching band geek and sometime musician/music teacher.  I'm sending him back the drum practice pad and all of my eldest son's drumsticks (which can become kindling for all I care at this point -- time for stuff to go). 

I might even throw in one of my two pitch pipes (not for smoking weed; they're for keying up voices and instruments to perfect pitch) since I cannot possibly need two.  I mean, seriously.  What am I supposed to do with two pitch pipes?  Blow F-sharp on one to make sure it matches perfectly with F-sharp on the other?  And what if I lose one?  Oh, gawd-forbid my pitch is off when trying to locate middle C out of thin air, which I used to be able to do - might still be able to do.  Hey, I'll check it right now.  I have two pitch pipes.  (Damn, I found B.  I'll definitely keep one of the pitch pipes.)

The saxophone my daughter hasn't touched since middle school band is going to go to a good cause, as well, via my brother.  That still leaves me with a harmonica, a wooden ocarina (like a recorder and kazoo combined), and a set of musical spoons.  Yes, spoons.  Like the kind you put together and slap between your knee and the palm of your hand.  Yeeeeeehaw!

So, in the past week, I've cleared out books, maps, and musical instruments.  A few months ago I started in the basement with sports equipment and other various things I'd been storing needlessly (a dented scout-sized mess kit, inner tubes for bike tires we no longer own, extra cords for telephones from way before we went cordless...).  I still have to attack all of my paper files, my clothes, and my fabric stash, not to mention the decades of pictures that need to be sorted and put into albums and the cyber ones that haven't yet been printed.

I'm making progress, kids.  I even took a few days to read one of the books I had forgotten my daughter lent me a few years ago because it was buried in a stack of other books.  This is all about moving in the right direction. 

The best part about it all, though, is that I can hum or whistle or even sing a happy tune as I go because I have the spoons to keep time, the recorders to accompany me, and I can find that perfect middle C with very little assistance from old-school gadgets.  Rock on!