Stuff in the Basement

I've spent the last two days cutting saturated carpet out of my basement, and running the shop-vac nearly to the breaking point trying to dry things up. Tonight, just as I sucked up the last puddle of stinking rainwater from the corner near the washing machine, I heard the sound of thunder, and another downpour began.

It's been weird these last few days, coming home from Chicago, opening the front door, and knowing by that smell of standing water, that the basement was flooded, even without going down to look. The continuing downpour of rain seems like a strange monsoon that has wandered away from some tropical country, and is now hovering over the Mid-Atlantic. The intensity of the rainfall, and the sheer volume of the water is frightening, you find yourself thinking of slopes and angles and inventing ways to divert the deluge. When I saw water and mud rushing down the stairs towards the basement, I grabbed a shovel and began building a tiny dam out of the gravel in my driveway. The little dam gave me enough time to unclog the seventy year old drain in the basement stairwell, but the damage was done, and I spent a good deal of time and sweat these last few days trying to rid my home of the dampness and the funky smell that came with the rain.

Sloshing around in the basement, sorting through what was left of the Christmas decorations and some of my favorite books that are now drenched, I thought about all of the stuff that we keep around, maybe because of some sentimental reason. Like that sculpture my sister Liz made for me when she was 15 and she had to take that woodshop class because she got caught smoking pot in the parking lot. Or the stained glass that my Mom gave me when I got my first apartment, that is too seventies to actually hang anywhere in the house, but for some reason I can't bring myself to get rid of it. And why do I keep so many books around? If by some miracle, I've managed to find the time to read them once, what makes me think that I will someday have enough leisure time to read them again? Still, I can never bring myself to throw books into the trash bin, it feels like I'm killing something living.

The older we get, the more space we take up, with our books and our memories, and all of the baggage that our parents have given us that cannot be easily disposed of. And at some point, we will float away ourselves, leaving behind these inexplicable objects that we could never part with, our children or in my case, my nephews will be selling some old dancing Santa on E-Bay, and sorting through the endless heap of stuff that we could never part with, wonder which treasure might draw a huge sum at an auction or a garage sale. But when I have finally floated away, I hope that my niece Colleen decides to hang onto the picture of me and three drag queens dancing on top of the bar in Sydney. She might put it in her own basement, and wonder why she can't seem to ever throw it into the trash heap.

Her children will stumble across the picture and have some questions about the antique photo.

And for generations, I will dance in Sydney.

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