Memoir Mon-er Wednesday?

Two days late and a few dollars short as well. Story of my life! LOL but that's to keep from bawling!
Anyway some more memory files stuff here.

A peculiar OCD obsession

From a relatively early age I’ve had a predilection for keeping things as tidy and organized as I can, especially in my yard and the area around my home.  At no more than ten or so, I would get busy several times a year and try to pull or chop the weeds, gather and throw away the wind-blown trash,  and collect like things together into neat piles and groups. There was plenty of that to work with!

To amplify on this, my family has a overwhelming tendency to be ‘pack rats’ approaching hoarder status. With a vague dream and plan to eventually acquire property for ‘a ranch’ and then be able to build all kinds of facilities and structures, my dad gathered tons—literally!—of materiel when the mining operation shut down in Jerome, AZ in the early 1950s. Phelps Dodge sold off all kinds of structural materials such as metal pipes, beams and sheets. This stuff accumulated along with piles of rails and posts for future fences and corrals and other ‘stuff’.  Sadly we mostly operated on leased or rented property and most of it was never put to the intended uses.

A lot of it was too heavy and massive for me to move but I at least cleaned up the windblown trash and cut the grass and weeds as best I could. Of course as I grew older, I was able to do more and a better job but I started this very young.  I kept that up until I finally left home in my early twenties. 

There was no call for my services in that vein while I was in college and later living in rented apartments and mobiles as a young working single but in time I married and began again to have a home base. My new family was not quite as collection prone but I did make an effort to keep our yard clean and added to that an eagerness to have flowers, trees and shrubs to add beauty and pleasure to my environment. I still do that although I have had to move many times and leave behind the fruits of my labor and stewardship. I’ve bade a sad farewell to the pyracanthia, the young trees, the iris and other bulb and tuber flowers and many, many rose bushes. Here in my current home I’ve planted roses, lilac and this past spring three forsythia bushes. They will all have to stay when I move, which I hope will happen in the coming year.

I’ve also made a practice of doing a major cleaning and rearranging of my living space, be it just a room or even only part of a room or a whole house. That effort always includes going through my possessions and getting rid of some of them—outgrown or no longer favored clothes, supplies and some unfinished projects of art, craft or sewing which somehow got lost and fell from my enthusiasm and interest, even sometimes books—although books have always been very cherished possessions—and a variety of trinkets and souvenirs. If I felt they had any use still, I would try to donate them. Goodwill, Salvation Army, ARC, St Vincent DePaul and other charities have been frequent recipients.

I am sure I drove a couple of roommates nearly bonkers my first year in college—I was still so used to being outside and very active that I had energy to burn and it often went to rearranging our room. I tried to limit it to my half but sometimes got carried away! The next year I had a solo room and that was better for everyone’s sanity. And the apartment I was in for the last two years was very limited as to how one could place the furniture, most coming with the space. By the time I had a new family, I had tamed this urge and did not force anyone to come home to an unfamiliar space more than a time or two.

In my current home I have changed things in my room (The Red Dog Room, that is) about three times in seven years. I had to measure and plan to get my bed with the head to the north. I’m really OC about that as other directions are either bad feng shui or simply feel wrong to me for the earth’s energy does not flow through my resting body correctly. Since this room is also my ‘office’ I had to work out a way to get my computer, a file cabinet and other paraphernalia placed in a workable manner. So it is crowded, I admit, and probably appears cluttered and less than appealing. It really is, to be honest, but the best I can do for now. This whole house is tooooo small, one big reason for wanting to relocate.

But the yard is neat; between us, my brother and  I keep the ‘junk’ very neatly stacked and stored, the grass mowed,  the weeds down and I nurse my flowers along as best I can. The soil here is not good and it would take decades of composting and fertilizing to improve it. In addition the water is laden with salts and minerals that are not nutritive for most plants. The few yards you see that are really pretty are mostly old and you can be sure have had years of TLC. There is a lot of gravel, bare ground and straggly looking plants! And in many yards a lot of junk, too, mostly scattered everywhere.  I almost itch to get in and tidy up, clean around and sometimes haul off—but that is not my duty! I doubt if the owners would appreciate my efforts. So I tell myself , "Mind your own business," and the Red Dogs on our walks are quite willing to encourage me so that we go on.