Being away so much this summer the garden was pretty much a bust. It seems strange not to be spending long days in the kitchen, canning tomatoes, chutneys and such. On the up side though, this winter, for the first time in a long time, I may actually empty my cellar shelves of all the canned goods.
I've been spending the time instead clearing out the attic. Over the years my mother foisted upon me boxes of things that belonged first to my grandmother, then my great aunt, followed by remnants of my parents' move from house to condo and then my mother's move to assisted living. I often took some things with me on my visits and we reminisced as we went through them one more time, making decisions as to their final disposition but there were still a lot of boxes in the attic.
The attic is big and it's been easy to just keep hauling stuff up there but now there's no point in keeping most of it. No one else has shown any interest in any of it and I have no children to whom I can leave even the things I will be keeping.
I guess I will never understand the lack of curiosity that characterizes the surviving members of my family. My mother and father weren't anything like that, my grandmother wasn't either. That's why there are so many letters, photographs and mementos in my possession. It's a rich history, well documented, and it seems it will disappear with me.
