Past Lives

All this sorting and organizing has got me thinking about past lives.  Not the type of past lives as in reincarnation and being some king or pharaoh in a long forgotten age (though that's certainly fun to consider), but the many past lives we all have wrapped right up in our present life.

As a minimalist I don't hold on to a lot of physical reminders of the past, but still there are remnants and I've found a few while going through boxes and bins.

Like this pile of towels and rags for instance.  Nothing special for sure but the smooth dish towels remind me of a time when I was the family "doughnut maker," carrying on a tradition that had me making well over 200 doughnuts each holiday season.

And the shop towels, bar mops, surgical towel, wash cloths and random other rags remind me of when I was in the industrial wiping cloth business - shipping out truckloads of rags to companies all over the country.  Wow that really was a lifetime ago!

Moving on, I came to the boxes labeled "Maria's Mementos."  There are two such boxes, neither very large, holding paraphernalia from my childhood and teenage years.  Here's a dish given to me as a baby present, along with my well worn and faded Humpty Dumpty who I slept with well into middle school.  I wore him out so many times that Mom had to keep re-covering him - that's why he's striped yellow and white and why his face is drawn on with marker.  Really faded but you can still make it out... kind of. 




Next there was a clay pot that I made when I was about 10.  I actually dug the clay out of the back yard, made the pot, and painted it with whatever I happened to have around.  I can't believe it's still in once piece after all these years!




Oh and this was a surprise.  In an envelope I found my wisdom teeth plus two other teeth that had to be extracted when I got braces.  Funny how I kept them!  Hmmm... now that I think about it I don't think I ever cashed in from the tooth-fairy on these.  Maybe I'll put them under my pillow tonight :)




Then we have Joe Cool who is - well he's way cool!  My Mom embroidered this for me when I was about 7 or so - a birthday present if I remember correctly.  He's a little dusty but still grooving.








Oooo... and here's my diary from my senior year of high school.  No! I'm not going to tell you what's in it but Oh My, it sure was funny reading about things I'd done and people I'd forgotten.  Some stuff was really interesting, some exciting, a lot boring, and some... maybe a little embarrassing.  Funny the things we thought and did at that age.



And finally we have Mister Troll!  Honestly I have no idea where he came from but I thought he was cute so he gets to grace my computer desk for a while :)

In addition to all this there were letters from my second grade best friend complete with our own secret code - remember that Kitty?

There were also awards and certificates (including one in phone etiquette of all things), report cards, programs from school plays I was in (always behind the scenes, never on stage), stories, plays and poems that I'd written as a kid (I had no idea I was such a prolific writer - even at a young age), a bunch of sheet music from my Jr. High band days, and other random stuff.  Also, I ended up throwing away a stack of paper over a foot high... even the memories need culling from time to time!

Tomorrow I'm going to go through the office boxes - remnants of the various businesses I've owned or been involved in over the years.  Should be quite interesting!