I flew to Phoenix last week to surprise my mother for her birthday. It worked, she had no idea I was coming. There were tears and then a party and much drinking. A delightful time, indeed. The remainder of my trip was devoted to cleaning out a storage space I kept for 10 years. I hadn’t opened it since I snapped the lock in 1999. NPR wanted me to start temping with them quickly, and I had little time to figure out a living situation so everything I owned went into the space. I remember telling myself that I would return in a few months and take what I needed to Washington D.C., and then give the rest to charity. Instead, a hectic life and thousands of miles between me and the space rendered it a time capsule. Upon opening it I found old bills, college papers, my Mac Performa, cassette tapes, the bike I used in college, a lamp and Ikea furniture galore. There were also bags and bags of books, the little library I assembled in my early twenties. Everything was coated with dust, a result of a decade’s worth of Arizona dust storms and general neglect — all of it just sitting there, alone and waiting for someone to pass judgement on it. The space wasn’t huge, the size of a large walk-in closet. I hauled everything out and to my parents’ backyard to sift through the layers. Everything I wanted to keep ended up fitting in a 14” sq. box with room to spare.

Over the next few posts I’ll catalogue the things in that box, survivors of 10 years of dark and dust.