STORAGE SPACE

 Hubby goes native: learning to appreciate the comfort of caftans in a desert climate.

Dearest Friends,

The one thing that most amazes me, as I read back through my small stack of date books from the 70s (which I hadn't looked at in twenty or thirty years) is just how much I somehow managed to forget.  This was such a momentous era in my life, I thought I would remember it all forever -- in detail!

How could I have completely forgotten, for instance, coming home from work at noon on my birthday to discover that "everything in our garage has been ripped off!"  Not only did I not remember the burglary, I didn't even remember having a garage!  Besides, no one ever got robbed in Bahrain, and what could we possibly have had in there that was worth losing a hand for?  Some empty trunks?  A few pitiful Christmas decorations?

Further along, however, I read that John came home early that evening "to talk to our landlord about our missing stuff", and five days later "we got the stuff from our garage back!"  Finally those memories began floating to the surface.  We weren't really robbed.  The landlord had our stuff!  He must have just decided he wanted to use that garage himself, or maybe he promised it to a more important tenant or something (which could explain why I didn't remember having one).  I faintly remembered someone in the neighborhood, perhaps our friend with the candy and cigarette shop, telling us that they saw our stuff being loaded up, and that we should go talk to the landlord.

As I sat here trying to dredge up these details, it struck me that our brain has much in common with a garage.  Or perhaps an attic would be a better metaphor, being at the tippy-top and all.  Whatever.  The thing is, whenever a house gets too cluttered, we box up some stuff and shove it into the garage or attic.  Each time we do this, other stuff gets shoved further and further towards the back until, eventually, we forget it's even there.  Occasionally, though, when we are up there digging around in search of one thing, we stumble across something else, and that which was forgotten comes flooding back.

Miss Becky decides to go native too!