a one-year old nest
by Elouise
basking in sunshine
beneath snow-white blossoms
a one-year old nest
That’s right, folks. Last autumn’s empty paper wasp nest survived last winter’s harsh reality weather! You can’t see them in this amateur shot through the window, but small wasps are buzzing all around the basket-like nest. Probably checking it out like a relic in a museum!
Will there be another queen and her subjects? I doubt it, even though the nest hasn’t lost any chunks to the ground below. Still, the story isn’t over, and I’m staying tuned.
Yesterday afternoon I finished my part of our 2-week attic books marathon (at least 30 boxes almost ready to go to The Theological Book Network). Then I started on my office.
This time it isn’t about giving things away. It’s about seeing what’s there in the first place. Most of it would count as personal memorabilia. Some needs trashing, and some will go to people who need more stationary or greeting cards (for example).
The best gift of all has been seeing bits of my life in personal notes, cards, photos and letters. Some precious, some OK to let go of, and some I don’t remember keeping at all.
At any rate, yesterday afternoon I had a wonderful teary session with these bits and pieces. Especially pieces I’d forgotten about. Which led me to wonder whether I know myself anymore.
Thanks for stopping by!
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 May 2021
Photo taken by erf, 18 May 2021
Telling the Truth 
Oh, Elouise, from your excellent blog I certainly believe you indeed know yourself.
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Thanks, Don! Unfortunately, I seem more inclined to remember the parts I wish I could forget. 😟 Which means I’m grateful for your kind comment. 😊🙏🏻
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Because we have moved so often I have done that going through, giving away, keeping, selling a few things but mostly giving away of so much in the past. I don’t think one thing I gave away that I have needed. We started over last May in upper Mn. and have a full house again. I am going to try and keep it light so our kids will not have to sort through so much.
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Precisely! I can’t imagine our adult children having to deal with our stuff. Especially the academic books! 😲
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As you know, we’ve been doing the same…and I’ve found boxes of letters going all the way back to my childhood. (Just one example: when I was a little girl and my oldest brother (18 years old) wrote to me from his time in the army and in Vietnam. I had saved all of this letters.)
We’ve found so many letters. So many photos. Tears flowed. 🙂 There seems to be so much more love in a letter than there are in texts and emails. 🙂
What you said about the wasps made me giggle! 🙂
And thinking about the empty-well-seasoned wasps nest that survived the winter storms…makes me think about the fact even tho’ I might feel frail in body, mind, and spirit some days, I, too, can be like that nest and hang on! 😉 😀
(((HUGS))) 🙂
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Hi, Carolyn!
That’s awesome–that you have letters from you oldest brother from Vietnam. Old photos and letters–definitely tear triggers. I hope you have many good cries. Your line about more love in a letter than in texts and emails is spot on!
As for survivor wasps, I have the feeling you’re way out there in front of them–especially when you’re hanging on for dear life. Have you written anything about your life? What you’ve had to deal with? What this time in your life is about? If so, I’d love to read it. If not, so be it–though I might not like it….:)
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I blogged from 2005 – 2012 on another blog site…then left there when they decided you HAD to pay $ to blog there but they never improved the site. I was so sad to leave. 😦 But everyone else jumped ship, too.
I found WordPress in 2011 and started blogging here officially in 2012. Over these years I have blogged a LOT about my life. And I (and my life) am often “in” the stories and poems I’ve written (and I’ve blogged some of those), but I’ve never officially written a memoir type book or anything.
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Hmmm. I would settle for links to some of your earlier posts. 😊🙏🏻
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To be brutally honest I don’t have time to look for them and link them. Just too busy right now.
But if you want you can scroll through my old posts in the Archives section (on the left side) of my Home page. 🙂
If you don’t have time, I understand. 🙂 ❤
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No problem…! Thanks for the suggestion. 😊
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I stopped reading after you mentioned boxing up your books. That is the one thing about the future that I dread. I am content to die, but I don’t want to get rid of my books.
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I’m with you, even though I know I’ll never read everything we have before I die. What a dilemma. Especially for teachers. Knowing where our books are going makes it a little easier to live with, but not by much.
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My brother left me over 800 books. Not special, as in those used in teaching, etc. Just an eclectic accumulation from wandering around bookshops selling cheap remainders and so on. I stacked them in my hallway sorted by author. He’d pencilled many of them with a note where he bought them, and he must have made an attempt to catalogue them as some had a number. Eventually I found suitable loving homes for most of them, and kept around sixty for my personal reading. Every so often I’ll find a metal foil from a cigarette packet as a bookmark. (he gave up and then started again). Or he’ll have underlined a passage and I ask myself why that one in particular? We both have wide-ranging tastes and enquiring minds. His collection is a bit of a licorice allsorts experience 🙂
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What a wonderful gift from your brother! He left bits and pieces of himself for you to discover at will. Very touching, from my point of view.
In addition to our academic books (theology, sociology, anthropology, biblical studies, etc.), we have literary works, mystery series, biographies, and dictionaries. We’re not ready to let them go yet–even though we know we’ll never get through all of them! Yesterday evening the pickup truck came for 29 boxes of usable books to be sent wherever they’re needed. Or tossed (but not by me!). 🙂
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Even though he has a wife, my brother left me so many things that at first it was a bit overwhelming to be honest. From as big as a second hand small BMW convertible, down to replica watches and a coin collection, which included real silver dollars by the way.But as you say, all contain a connection. One was our dog’s identity tag. That has found itself weaved into the manuscript I am working on.
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I think your brother loved you very much. What a wonderful gift…all of it.
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