Thrice now I open the boxes of my parents' household, perusing the remnants of the past for things of worth and beauty. Some of the boxes were first packed up in 1989; they moved with us to Germany, stayed shut there and forgotten, then came back in 2000, when circumstance dictated our return. My mother was an artist – what to do with all her art? I digitize what fits to scan, but where do all these framed works go? I've thrown out the brush-nubs and pencil-stubs, yet still remain mounds of useful artist's tools. Her Noah woodblocks, full of meaning, give the house a westward leaning. On Katherine von Bora, she gathered much, great stacks and reams, thee binders all but bursting with a lifetime's shortened focus. My own stuff I take out, but most of it's junk, I add it to trash-bags that line the far curb, the fruits of a lifetime all bound for the dump. My father was pastor and seaman and drunk, his sermons and watch-caps, his beer-steins and stoles – to keep them or trash them, to let them grow mold, to stuff them in storage and further delay, the simple decisions that face me today? By times it's rewarding, by times it is hard, to comb through the stacks of shit my parents prized, to toss what is useless and keep what is good. Enough of this writing, more boxes await, I welcome the challenge and accept my fate. Aho.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥
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