sorting and tossing...mental and otherwise

I started sorting in my house this week. Yesterday, I filled box after box with things I haven't used in years. I can't usually do it in one fell swoop because a few things, I have to look at for a while to decide if it really is time for it to go. It's a messy process, too, because I'm random and jump from cupboard to cupboard as I think of things.

This is my Grandma Elsie's meat grinder. I couldn't even guess how old it is...but old. The original directions are still there. I have used it once in all the years I've had it...when Regis and I made his mom's recipe for perogies, a Polish meat pie. We made the mistake of doubling the recipe. It requires a lot of cooking, grinding, boiling, and frying. My God. It almost killed me. I think it was a 12-hour project. I posted a picture of it on Facebook and my friend, Pam, said she would love to have it.

I have always known this about myself. I fill my cupboards and closets with stuff I just keep but don't use and the then there is no space to store anything I do use. It all has to sit out. I've always told myself that I like to see my stuff...hahaha...but it's driving me insane now.

I love dishes and realize it's stupid to keep them packed away in boxes. I have dug them all out and tried to find places for them. Some went in the giveaway box. My 4th of July dishes found a home in this kitchen cupboard. They are too heavy to haul up and down the kitchen stairs.

This sorting and dumping and giving away takes on greater significance because I am doing the same thing in some therapy I have recently taken on. I stumbled onto an amazing woman and I knew it when she had a ginko leaf framed on her fireplace. We've been doing EMDR which is a new and incredible tool for healing the things that niggle your brain and memory. She's helping me put those things in my brain's library so they don't float around my frontal cortex, making me edgy and fearful.

This is an interview on a radio show called On Being. I love the show and this week, ironically, there was a man named Bessel van der Kolk who talked about the healing powers of yoga and EMDR. When I mentioned his name to my therapist (after showing her the pink piece of paper) she gasped and said, "He is a friend of mine. I have trained with him. I call him to consult on difficult cases." Here is the link to the interview: Restoring the Body: Bessel van der Kolk on Treating Trauma with Yoga, EMDR, and Healing Therapies . Another reason to believe I am in the right place.

I'd take a listen even if you aren't trying to sort our your mental shit. Probably not an accident that I am sorting out my household shit at the same time.

Don't be concerned that I have turned into a knife-wielding whacko. It's not overly dramatic stuff...just baggage that everyone collects along the path. It niggles (love this new word) my brain.

I'm going to have Regis help me with my phone camera. You aren't experiencing cataracts when you look at my blog...it's my crappy photographic skills. This should improve.

Ta ta, for now, friends.