You baked bread. You watched all 150 episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." You held Zoom calls with your tennis girlfriends. You watched the tulips come up and the deer fencing come down. And you walked around the block enough times to notice that when you hit your stride just past the Smither's and that spot in the curb where the water bubbles up that your pace is exactly same as the rhythm of 10cc's 1975 hit "I'm Not in Love." Nah, you're not bored.
You've probably also tackled projects that you have put off for, well, almost forever. Up until now, there was always something more pressing, something that had a higher priority. It was easy to walk past that storeroom because the kids needed help with their homework. You could ignore your overstuffed closet because you had to write the memo for work. And that pile of papers in the corner could surely wait because dinner needed to be made. Something, almost anything was more attractive than sorting your sock drawer.
But not now. Sure, you have time at home that you didn't have before. But curiosity started to play a part. And so you pulled out that box, wiped the dust from the top, and dived in. And what you found was, in equal doses, both smile inducing and cringe worthy.
In the quest to find another that other pair of sweatpants you just know you that have, you reach to the back of your closet, there to find artifacts that either you couldn't part with or just got left behind. Your best pair of well-worn wide-leg hip-hugger denim jeans with the floral applique on the leg. Or the crepe peasant blouse with a string neckline. Perhaps a pair of painter overalls or a white linen leisure suit with an Eisenhower jacket. It hurts just to think about slipping it on.
But it's not just clothes. Maybe you have a workshop or storage area with a few tools, a place you keep lightbulbs and extension cords. There in the back, behind the old ironing board, is a shelf that hasn't ever seen sunlight. On it are all those things you used to have upstairs, but no more. A pair of brass sconces from before you repainted the living room. A saucepan with a loose handle from your first set of cookware that you were saving for when your daughter goes to college. A coffee mug with the legend "National Conference New Orleans 1992." And a picture frame with a slightly cracked piece of glass that fell off the wall at your Millennium party when you were partying like it actually was 1999.
Flipping channels gets you to the same place, cycling back a decade or two or even three. Seeking to escape the constant barrage of infection totals and testing issues, you click away until your find the visual equivalent of comfort food. There's "The Golden Girls," "Parks and Recreation" and "The Sopranos." And for a dose of much needed "if we all work together we can conquer anything" spirit, there's every variation ever made of "Star Trek."
Personally speaking I have my own time machine. There's a shelf in my office with videos done over a 40-plus year career. A little $15 device from Amazon lets me digitize them for posterity, as if anyone will ever want to watch. Screening them is like stepping into another dimension of topics, fashion and design, one that whooshes me back to the heady days of the seventies and eighties. Aviator glasses, wide lapels and big hair abound. Clunky graphics in bleeding primary colors look like they were made by a toddler. And titles like "Your New 201E Electronic Typewriter," "Word Processing: It's the Future!" and "The Y2K Threat" speak to the technology of the time.
Or maybe it's as simple as an old box of pictures. There you are in short shorts and a tie-dyed tee shirt, or a shag haircut, or a polyester floral print shirt, a wide belt sporting a big buckle and white pants. No, they never have to see the light of day. Then again you might just want to dust off those vinyl boots. Everything we know is in the process of changing. And that might mean, to paraphrase the great Peter Allen, everything old could really be new again.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford is slowly cleaning out corners. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
You've probably also tackled projects that you have put off for, well, almost forever. Up until now, there was always something more pressing, something that had a higher priority. It was easy to walk past that storeroom because the kids needed help with their homework. You could ignore your overstuffed closet because you had to write the memo for work. And that pile of papers in the corner could surely wait because dinner needed to be made. Something, almost anything was more attractive than sorting your sock drawer.
But not now. Sure, you have time at home that you didn't have before. But curiosity started to play a part. And so you pulled out that box, wiped the dust from the top, and dived in. And what you found was, in equal doses, both smile inducing and cringe worthy.
In the quest to find another that other pair of sweatpants you just know you that have, you reach to the back of your closet, there to find artifacts that either you couldn't part with or just got left behind. Your best pair of well-worn wide-leg hip-hugger denim jeans with the floral applique on the leg. Or the crepe peasant blouse with a string neckline. Perhaps a pair of painter overalls or a white linen leisure suit with an Eisenhower jacket. It hurts just to think about slipping it on.
But it's not just clothes. Maybe you have a workshop or storage area with a few tools, a place you keep lightbulbs and extension cords. There in the back, behind the old ironing board, is a shelf that hasn't ever seen sunlight. On it are all those things you used to have upstairs, but no more. A pair of brass sconces from before you repainted the living room. A saucepan with a loose handle from your first set of cookware that you were saving for when your daughter goes to college. A coffee mug with the legend "National Conference New Orleans 1992." And a picture frame with a slightly cracked piece of glass that fell off the wall at your Millennium party when you were partying like it actually was 1999.
Flipping channels gets you to the same place, cycling back a decade or two or even three. Seeking to escape the constant barrage of infection totals and testing issues, you click away until your find the visual equivalent of comfort food. There's "The Golden Girls," "Parks and Recreation" and "The Sopranos." And for a dose of much needed "if we all work together we can conquer anything" spirit, there's every variation ever made of "Star Trek."
Personally speaking I have my own time machine. There's a shelf in my office with videos done over a 40-plus year career. A little $15 device from Amazon lets me digitize them for posterity, as if anyone will ever want to watch. Screening them is like stepping into another dimension of topics, fashion and design, one that whooshes me back to the heady days of the seventies and eighties. Aviator glasses, wide lapels and big hair abound. Clunky graphics in bleeding primary colors look like they were made by a toddler. And titles like "Your New 201E Electronic Typewriter," "Word Processing: It's the Future!" and "The Y2K Threat" speak to the technology of the time.
Or maybe it's as simple as an old box of pictures. There you are in short shorts and a tie-dyed tee shirt, or a shag haircut, or a polyester floral print shirt, a wide belt sporting a big buckle and white pants. No, they never have to see the light of day. Then again you might just want to dust off those vinyl boots. Everything we know is in the process of changing. And that might mean, to paraphrase the great Peter Allen, everything old could really be new again.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford is slowly cleaning out corners. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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