Peeling off the past

A few days ago I put away several old family photos and mementos. Most of them were ones that my Mom had when she moved here and I have been keeping on display on a shelf in my office.
I’m surprised by how good it feels now to have put them away.

Here is a before picture from 2017. The largest family photo on the left is actually a duplicate of one I have in a smaller size in my bedroom. So there was no reason to have both out. It was just here from when this was my Mom's room. This also shows the bottom two shelves as they were before I did my downsize featured in: Desperate to declutter

The after shot. The top of the bookcase is what I'm writing about here. The black thing is a tv antenna. As you can see I still haven't added more stuff to the bottom two shelves. It isn't from lack of possibilities! I just haven't wanted to clutter it up with anything else yet. Is that weird?

I felt guilty at first, as if I was being disloyal to all those people in some way because I put their pictures and mementos away. But I’m realizing I don’t need to give so much space to the past or to family members who don't live here.

My parents had such a large collection of old family photos, mostly 8x10, that my Dad made two special cubby shelf units and created a large display area on one end of their living room.

I still have the cubby shelves. (One is in a closet because I don’t know what to do with it.)  The other one is hanging in my office where I am writing this. When my Mom lived with me this was her room and I put some of her cute knick-knacks on it. After she moved into a “residential care home” and I turned this room into my office I kept it on the wall, but I don’t have anything displayed on it anymore. I experimented with putting things on it, but I like the minimal uncluttered look best. When I look at it as I walk into the room it gives me a sense of peace.

It did anyway. Now I want to put it away too. In fact I don’t really want to keep it at all. The fact that my Dad made them is really the only reason I haven’t gotten rid of them both already. And because I kept thinking they might be useful someday.

But I don’t have anywhere in my house where I want them. It’s been 9 years since they came here with my Mom and all her other stuff. Nine years! It’s hard to believe it’s been that long since she sold her home and moved near us and then in with us. And after four years in our home she moved into a residential care home where she is now. Anyway, now that I think about it that is plenty long enough to show that I am not going to use them. I have given them a “fair go”, as my Aussie friends might say, and I can part with them with a clear conscience!

I feel embarrassed to admit that I don’t want them. But why should I? My brother didn’t want them and I don’t think he felt bad about it. In fact, he probably hasn’t given it another thought! So why do I feel like I have to keep them or I am being a bad daughter? I don’t need to feel obligated to keep anything just because my Dad made it or it was important to him once. He doesn't need it now. He's in heaven.

If I don’t want or have a use for those cubby shelves he made, for example, then I don’t need to keep them. It would be nice to find someone who will want them but why do I feel like I have to be the curator of everything? I don’t think “honor your father and mother” means we have to dispose of all their stuff in the most perfect possible way.

As I mentally “try on” the idea of getting rid of (or at least putting away) all these things I get a feeling like dark heavy layers lifting off of me and peeling away. Like I’m a newly hatched chick.
I am sensing that I have unconsciously been giving these things and the people they represent far too much “power” in my life for too long. Family is important to me. But I will always have my memories of them in my heart and mind. And if I lose those then photos or cubby shelves probably won’t help. The people were part of my past and they helped to make me, me. But I don’t have to stay stuck in the past.

Enchanted Rock Part 2

When John returned from climbing to the top of Enchanted Rock (ER) (see my last post in case you missed it!). We hiked out to the overlook together. It was a lovely place to finished what was left of our respective lunches.

Another couple who were also picnicking there asked us to take their photo and then took this one of us.

 

  From the Overlook:

Little Rock is "shedding"

There were lots of pretty and fun things to see going to and from the Overlook as well.

It was amazing to see all the flowers growing almost literally out of granite.

I love this little flower!  Notice the  yellow pompoms on stalks in the center and how you can see some of their shadows. If I was naming it I might call it a "clown flower" :-).

I thought it was fascinating the way the white petals have a sparkly sheen to them

This rock formation looked to me like an upside down hippo. It reminded John of an armadillo!

Just after we left ER around 3:00 pm, John surprised me by suddenly pulling over. There were a lot of wildflowers so when he saw a place to pull over, he took it.

John photographing the wildflowers along the roadside.

Enchanted Rock looking like a moonscape in the back ground.

Our campsite was at Oxford Ranch Campground, in Llano, TX. The campground is about 15 minutes from ER. Llano is another 9 miles north of the campground on Hwy 16. Enchanted Rock only had tent sites. And since we have an RV we had to look elsewhere to camp. Our motor home is the one with the tow car behind it.

(One of our reflective sun shields came loose and was hanging down. The suction cups we use to attach them with sometimes come loose, especially in the wind.)

The RV next to ours looked like it had been uninhabited for some time. It was sad to see the birds tearing lots of fluffy strands off its decaying awning.  Note to self: get an awning protector for periods when our rv is not in use.

We did get more neighbors over the weekend. So there wasn’t as much wide open space after that.
Most fellow RVers are reasonably friendly, at least they'll wave or say “hi”, but none of our neighbors on this trip were. It was strange and a little discouraging, to me anyway, I don’t think John would have noticed if I hadn’t said anything. Many fellow hikers at ER were friendly though, so that helped to make up for it.

There was a lot of pretty scenery and that helped too!

This was the view behind our RV

After getting rather worn out from our hiking at ER, I wasn’t planning to go out anymore that day. But when John came back from a little wander around the campground with reports of spectacular wild flowers I couldn't resist. So, we went out for a another walk together. I took 26 photos in 15 minutes! Here are only a few of them:

Oxford Ranch appears to have been a working ranch at one time, maybe still is, at least if these old tractors parked in the background are any indication.

The nearest town to our campground was Llano TX, about nine miles away. We went shopping there a couple of times and to church Easter Sunday morning. There were lots of interesting sounding things to do in the area. And the town looked like a fun place to explore with its old buildings and picturesque square, and antique stores. But we decided to focus on exploring Enchanted Rock, and resting up between times.

We stayed for several more days and did more hiking at ER and walks around the campground and took lots more photos! :-)

The butterflies enjoyed all the flowers too. Most were too busy to photograph.

These little fern made me think of a miniature pine forest.

White poppies

Because we had full hookups, including sewer, I didn't try to use the campground’s “restroom” until our last morning there. John said the men’s room was ok, so to save space in our black tank for the next trip, I thought I would use the women’s room after John dumped our tanks. But I quickly changed my mind. The toilets were partly dismantled and from my position by the door they looked unusable—I’ll spare you the details! I didn’t want to get any closer to investigate further or stay long enough to take photos. The whole room had a semi demolished look and like someone needed to hurry up and finish the job. I was even more than usually thankful for sewer hookups and an RV with a shower and toilet. I wonder now if there was another women's room somewhere else. If so they never told us about it.

We were pleased to get away by our target of 9:00 a.m.--a first.  We wanted to avoid the heat of the day since our a/c went out on the trip down from Glen Rose. Our GPS tried to take us home to Dallas through Fredericksburg which is in the opposite direction and would have added at least another hour. We knew that going straight back up through Llano on 16 and connecting up with FM 2005 for part of the way like Google said was not a good idea because that was the way we came! Three very narrow bridges on 16 and sections of 2005 were so narrow we went off the road a little in one place. (Our GPS didn’t want us to go that way but Google thought it would be fine so we followed Google. It gave us a little more respect for our GPS.) Anyway, we dodged all that, and avoided going the long way through Fredericksburg, by going east on 71 to 281 to 220 to 67.