Little Piles

Or...Sorry the house is a mess

I keep trying to clean one shelf in our kitchen. It is a crap collecting shelf. On this shelf sits a folded up piece of paper. I have picked up this piece of paper several times, opened it, read it, folded it back up and put it back. What is on it you may ask?

It is a hand written recipe for a marinade. Both my parents had distinctive handwriting. My mom’s - beautiful script. My dad’s - mostly unreadable. This is what life is like these days. The big stuff has been moved around, cleaned up. The little piles remain. Handwritten lists squirreled away in a corner, a pile of papers I swear I was going to deal with, unmatched socks, one pair of sweatpants that keeps getting put in the laundry because I don’t want to get rid of them but also don’t want them.

The physical little piles you stubble upon are no match for the emotional piles. I will be going about my day and then all of a sudden I am crying in the car. I will be mid-lullaby and think about all the songs they won’t get to hear my dad sing and my voice breaks, I choke back the tears and keep on keepin on.

Eventually the physical little piles will be less and less frequent. My virgo heart will put everything in neatly labeled boxes and stack them in an organized closet. The emotional piles - well I’ll be stepping in those for the rest of my life.

I think the recipe is for pomegranate molasses chicken wings. My dad and I would always joke with my mom that we wanted to make pork for Jewish holidays and she would never allow us to.