The Stuff Of Family & Ancestors: Thoughts While Sorting Through Boxes

February 27, 2018May 15, 2018 / Ally Bean / 69 Comments

Does this make me feel more alive?

[The question to ask. Always.]

I’ve been in a deciding frame of mind this month. Must get rid of a past that doesn’t serve me.

A past that in many cases is not mine, but I reluctantly accepted and boxed up when elderly relatives passed on, storing their stuff in my closets, I did.

Now, I want empty closets, the feeling of lightness.

Been going through dusty boxes of old family photos and documents and letters. Pamphlets and newspaper articles.

Memorabilia, too.

Does this make me feel more alive?

I shred the photos and docs and letters that don’t call to me, and save those that might… might… might… someday find their way into…

a blog post?

an article or essay?

a memoir, perhaps, even?

But as for the family memorabilia, it’s a different kind of past. Remembered with objects, things of history.

Personal cookbooks; and 1940s slides [with a projector]; and handwritten family stories; and a diary; and a daguerreotype; and [of all things] a Civil War soldier’s personal mirror with carved initials.

What shall I decide about these objects, I wonder.

Does this make me feel more alive?

Difficult for me, an adult orphan, to know what to do with these things that held memories for someone who is long gone. Someone who I may never have met.

I intend to make peace with these objects, sending them on their way…

to history museums or libraries?

to antique malls?

to the dump?

I’ve been a good relative, respectful, but now I’m ready to have more space, both literal and figurative, in my life. Must get rid of a past that doesn’t serve me.

Does this make me feel more alive?

Thoughts About Drab Days On A Drab Day In February

February 12, 2018February 12, 2018 / Ally Bean / 66 Comments

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When people talk about how much they hate winters around here, it often has less to do with the snow + ice, and more to do with the lack of bright natural light and showy colors, as shown in the photo above.

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Even the trees around here, who reveal more of themselves in the winter, don’t seem cheerful– making the little boxwood bushes, who do the color green like nobody’s business, seem almost frivolous.

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Of course interspersed with the low-light days we get a day like last Thursday. A day with the sun shining brightly in the clear blue sky. A day made for looking up through leafless, snowless tree branches. A day for contrast.

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But then we’re back to a landscape filled with muted, tea-stained colors– that offer a quiet beauty that appeals to some people, like me, but depresses the heck out of others.

Here Are My 3 “Sorry / Not Sorry” Opinions

October 5, 2017December 2, 2022 / Ally Bean / 78 Comments

INTRODUCTION

One of my favorite podcasts is Sorta Awesome.

It’s a weekly talk show in which at least two of the four co-hosts, who live in different parts of the USA, talk politely + intelligently about awesome things that they like. Things like: books, TV, family, relationships, travel, health, beauty, self-awareness, personalities, social media, blogs.

The episode that hooked me in this time was Episode #110 in which all four women shared their 3 “sorry / not sorry” [potentially unpopular] opinions. This was a conversation [with a digression into raw chicken that was priceless] that at times had me laughing so hard I feared that I’d pee my pants.

But I didn’t.

Grateful for what didn’t happen, and upon reflection, I decided that this Sorta Awesome “sorry / not sorry” topic would make for an interesting blog post. So without further ado, I give you the following…

MY 3 “SORRY / NOT SORRY” OPINIONS

I question the smarts of people who place flags in such a way as to have the flag pointing back toward the house, instead of having the flag point forward. It’s all about history and common sense, kids.

Flags are the colors + symbol that you follow as you’re going into battle: they show you the way. Therefore, you don’t point the flag back at yourself, because you might impale yourself on it as you move forward. That would make no sense.

So for the love of all that is good, fly the flag properly. Please.

I do not believe that curly/frizzy hair is a sign of improper grooming. Here’s a news flash: God gave some people curly/frizzy hair and it’s okay to let it be curly/frizzy.

Not everyone has stick straight hair [natural or forced] like the Kardashians or Melania Trump. No, some people, like me, have curly/frizzy hair that we keep clean, professionally cut– and wear in a style that is *gasp* natural.

Yep, that’s the truth. Deal with it.

I refuse to pretend that mochi balls are a tasty treat. I don’t care how deliciously on trend you think they are, how calorically perfect you think they are, how cleverly Japanese you think they are… I don’t like ’em.

They taste awful to me and have a miserable texture. But that is, of course, because I don’t like to eat blobs of fruity-tea-flavored melting ice cream wrapped in color-coordinated Play-Doh.

In a word, I’d describe mochi balls as: bleech.

CONCLUSION

You may or may not agree with what I’ve written above. It matters not to me, which is the whole point of this exercise in honesty.

I figure that by sharing, what I’d describe as rather benign, opinions on a variety of topics, I’ve opened up the blog comments to all of you, my gentle readers, to do the same.

Blogger see. Blogger do.

So… tell me a few of your “sorry / not sorry” opinions. I’d love to know.

No Conundrums. No Chaos. No Calamities.

September 26, 2017May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 52 Comments

The title of this post explains it.

BUTTERFLY BLUR

Most of the time when I write here I have something specific to *blah, blah, blah* about, but today all is well.

BUTTERFLY IN ACTION

So instead of manufacturing a faux problem to blog about I’ll share a few photos of a pretty butterfly flitting about, with purpose and intent, on our butterfly bush.