The Memory Drawers
It is that point in the year when I start opening my memory drawers.
There is a Scottish New Year’s tradition where you clean your house and sweep your fireplaces called the redding. It is considered ill luck to welcome a new year with an unclean house. I heard and saw many of these traditions carried out quietly in my home growing up as while it was part of our heritage it was rarely spoken of and just done. In my personal redding, I clean and tidy my memory drawers.
I started the drawers as a teen. It was a way I found to help me cope with the situations I had to deal with, or not deal with as the case may be. Sometimes we are simply not ready to process the life lessons handed to us. They are essential to our long term growth and well being and they are there to provide us with the opportunities to help and start the healing for others. They need a place to be in ourselves until we are ready for them.
It all started with me imagining a chest of drawers. Mine is a highboy stand in rich mahogany wood with lovely brass handles. It sits in a beam of white light and is just high and wide enough to fold and sort on the top. What I do with the memories is fold them up all neat and tidy like you would find in a display at a high end store. I handle them with care these days, but when I was younger I would fold and toss into the first drawer I opened. I would close the drawer and walk away from it, closing the door to the room in which my Memory Drawers sits.
Now like most closets and drawers, over time the items get mixed up, tossed around, fall out or just plain disorganized. You forget that favorite shirt that has been wadded into the back corner, yet holds the fond memory of someone you loved deeply. You find that old pair of jeans with the holes, yet is soft and comfortable, and then you come upon that ugly sweater with all the things popping out of it and you wonder what you were thinking when you wore it.
In my clean out, I remove each of the memories, good and bad. I unfold them, turn them over, feel and smell them. I take the time to recall the people and images that comes to me. They are not all pretty; in fact some are downright ugly and scary to deal with. I cry, I laugh, I smile and sometimes I get choked up and feel like I cannot breathe. But with each item I take out from my memories drawers I ask myself, “Have I learned why I am hanging on to this? Am I ready to deal with this? “If the answer is yes, I work on the memory and then I let the memory go and let myself feel lighter for it. If the answer it no, or is too painful to explore fully I refold it and place it back neatly into the drawers. If it is golden memory, you know the ones where someone you love is with you and will always be; I try to imagine transforming it into something wondrous. A rainbow, a golden ball, and a charm of a beloved bracelet or another keepsake I can carry with me always.
The drawers are always there and I can open and look at things over and over or simply add something to work on later. They remind me not all troubles last, neither do the things we love and that it is okay to put things aside sometimes to deal with when we are ready or even to pull out when another is in need.
As the New Year comes I have not only cleaned my physical house, but my emotional and spiritual one as well. I do not make resolutions, but the tidying of my memory drawers teaches me where I should go and what I need to focus on over the next year.
Take the time to look at your memory drawers before the New Year, and may you find wonderful gifts within them to carry you forward to the life you dream of over the year.
Blessings
Mary
