bobbin

this new house is quite an adventure. it was remodeled just before we bought it by the type who flip houses for a living. they got it from someone who appears to have been feral. the house is old. 1925. there's an apple tree in back probably as old as the house with branches clawing at everything. there are three large closets upstairs (each the size of a manhattan loft- i'm not kidding- 6x12). on the inside of the door of one closet someone has carved "glen is a jerk" and then put stabby holes all around it. of course it stays. along the inside door frame of another, someone has written "jennifer's closet" in chalk with rainbow hearts and flowers running down the sides. the stair railings are chewed at the corners. one of the doors is chewed from floor to doorknob both on the door and the door frame. there are hook locks on the outsides of some of the bedrooms. it seems that dogs and children spent considerable time in closets here, sometimes with sharp objects.

then there's the yard. we've been picking up trash since november. there's a depression in the ground behind the house we think was a trash pit that got out of control. today was warm so i got a bag and went around picking up some of what was left behind. much of it was construction related. the renovators (or perhaps previous owners) appear to have smashed all the windows out from the inside. there are shards of glass under every window, roofing shingles and bits of wood, much of it with large nails and screws sticking out. some is household garbage. i dug a plastic tampon applicator halfway out of the ground before realizing what i'd unearthed. this is when wise people go in the house for gloves. black plastic bags, shoe laces, bits of toys, ziploc bags, plastic cutlery, plates and cups. ribbon, bits of food wrappers, scraps of fabric and buttons. string, twine, rope, wire. the black plastic buried a few inches down was difficult to pull out. a writhing mass of small, red worms spewed out with the last tug. worms are not horrible until they start spewing out in writhing masses.

the tree in the front yard is ringed with large, smooth stones. for some reason, the yard here is covered with what looks like wet toilet paper in small wads. these are taking the most time because there are hundreds of these small, cottony piles and they manage to attract even more bits of the aforementioned clutter. everything is shreds, remnants of someone else sticking to the house, the yard, the trees. i know this is what archaeologists do. sift through garbage. needles from the big spruces gather in wet clumps on the stones around them. in the middle of one clump is a bobbin, threadless, unbroken, bright as anything, waiting.