It has been a very strange week, and my small universe constantly serves me lessons, or rather reveals small matters that seem profound. Like when I was cleaning up the unit at Inglewood, which was left in a sordid state. I found what appeared to be a piece of hash – mixed in with everything else left on the floor: the long black hair, the beer bottles, broken jewelry, past due bills and speeding tickets. Well, it looked like a large chunk of hash (from what I can remember from those days long ago), but on second thought, perhaps it was cat poop.
Sorting though someone else’s garbage is a strange thing. This woman actually had some lovely jewelry, a college certificate, a depression glass candy dish, a Christmas reindeer candle holder. Oh yes, and there was a statement of earnings – $48,000.00. Not bad; it revealed that the amount that a person earns is not necessarily an indication of how she might live. It was those personal family pictures that I just couldn’t throw in the recycling: baby pictures, pictures of family standing in a line with big smiles, obviously celebrating some success, a faded photo of some long buried person who must have had interesting stories, now lost. I stacked them neatly in a pile wondering if she would return for them. What could have happened to this lady that she would just throw her past onto the floor and walk away. It seemed sad…. but my job was just to get the unit cleaned so that it could be rented to the next person, who also has his own things that I may some day be sorting through… I hope not. I would rather be raking my own leaves.