"The Puzzle Piece"

            The puzzle pieces, dumped unceremoniously upon the dining room table, hide a magic surprise. I pick carefully through the pile, categorizing pieces by color, sliding edges to the side. Puzzles require thinking inside the box, so establishing borders comes first. Straight lines and matching designs group and regroup until I form pairs and short chains. Once the boundaries hold firm, the real work begins. My hands dance through the choreography: pick up, turn, twist, match, fit. Again and again until out of chaos emerges the picture. Gestalt.
          Then disassembly begins. Tearing down the whole back into the individual bits, I bend and separate until chaos piles again on the tabletop. Haphazardly, I swipe everything back into the box, not noticing a lone piece hiding under the edge of a book. Now the puzzle, unknown to me, loses its wholeness. The lone piece longs for reunification. When I pull another puzzle out of its box and spill it across the table, the hidden part slips into the mound, trying to belong where it no longer fits.
            The piece carries similar colors and shapes to this new picture. I don’t notice the subtle differences each time I try to find a place for it. I pick it up, scrutinizing it meticulously as I try to find a mate. Near matches frustrate me as I try to force the bit into belonging. I even resort to pounding it with my fist before casting it aside. I pick up my rhythm once the piece sits in isolation, an outcast within the group. Eventually, the picture sits in completeness upon my table. My eyes draw over to the castaway that caused me so much irritation, and in shame I realize my mistake. Picking up the stray piece, I recall the picture of the last puzzle I’d assembled. I go directly to my shelved boxes, pluck open the correct box, and return the piece to its home.

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"New Voyages"

 

David Chapman--artist

         I never want to spend my life fretting over the words never said, or the acts never completed. The changes in our lives during this last year bring home to me the importance of giving our best to those we love. Sometimes, I get so caught up in the minutiae of a situation that I bog everyone else down. “The Big Picture” always calls for taking risks and believing with heart over head. That outlook proves difficult for my often straight column approach to life, but whenever I’ve chosen my heart, I’ve never gone in the wrong direction. Whenever I push away my heart, anxiety suffocates me. Taking a breath, eating a meal, and sleeping at night all become impossible.

My head analysis tells me the “right” decisions, the cautious choices that assure safe passage across rough seas. My head won’t even weigh anchor if the voyage looks too dangerous.  The head must have life boats in tip-top condition. It makes certain there are enough jackets available for unexpected passengers. It plots my route and stays true to my course. But no matter how carefully my head plans for every exigency, a tidal wave broadsides me, flips my vessel over, and makes life boats and life jackets useless.

         My head, you see, doesn’t calculate for the totally unpredictable event. It cannot. That’s the heart’s job. The heart latches onto dreams and nightmares. The heart foresees the tsunami and still sets sail. The heart accepts risk because life’s random. That capriciousness doesn’t dissuade the heart. The heart believes.

         In the rough seas I now traverse, my heart speaks strongly to me. Believe. Believe. Believe. And so I trust my decisions. The moment I listen to the murmuring song of my heart, the decisions I must make ring true and clear. The head will step forward eventually. It will find the means of making the dreams a reality. By singing along with the heart, the voyage will prove challenging, but not impossible.    

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman             

"My Debt Exchange Program"

         Opening an old spiral in search of blank paper, I stumbled upon budgetary goals from several years ago. Column after column of monthly earning and spending that optimistically dwindled my debt on multiple cards while it built a savings buffer for taxes and unforeseen catastrophes.
         I chuckled to realize that my current debts and assets reads almost exactly the same as where I stood two years ago.
         Have I remained still? When analyzing the red, I noted that my final BALANCE DUE hadn’t nudged at all!
         I’d get discouraged if I didn’t applaud the achievements of my budgeting. Although it appears I’m running in place, in reality I’ve used paid down debt to repair, renovate and replace.
         All of those tallied columns and hopeful projections remind me of the importance of planning. My two steps forward, one step back approach to life would probably frustrate most people, but I can appreciate my accounting accomplishments.

Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"The Metal Box"

As long as I can remember, my parents have had a metal box filled with all of their important papers. I don’t know when they assembled the documents of their lives. Perhaps they’ve always had the box. I do know that the box made an appearance each time my parents evacuated for a hurricane. When my parents and brother made their way up to San Antonio to escape a storm, they tucked the metal box behind the driver’s seat. The papers within this little case provided protection from disaster: life insurance policies on each family member (they still have policies on each of us kids), flood insurance and home insurance, deeds, wills, marriage license, social security cards, birth certificates, military records. My father assembled a list of important phone numbers (like the DOD and Social Security) for us to use either of them died. That way everything would be in one spot in case of an emergency. I’ll never forget the gratitude I felt that my father had taken care of all of this information. Some of the items he had on his check list had to be done within a certain amount of time after he died. We would have been clueless without his thoughtful guidance.

The metal box moved to San Antonio when Mom left League City. Yesterday, I hauled it out in search of the deed to the Leakey property. One of our “neighbors” wants to put in electricity on his acreage, and the electric co-op needs Mom to sign a Utility Easement form. The document’s blanks follow the deed exactly—at least, I think it does. I couldn’t find the deed, or any documentation on the property, in the container. With a phone call to the proper county office, a county official read the deed information to me. It troubled me, though, to find that some important papers have managed to escape their metal home. When I asked my mother about the deed, she recalled changing the form into her name after Dad died, which was ten years ago. She distinctly remembered putting everything pertaining to the property into a manila envelope. She thought she’d returned it all to the box. I imagine she placed the packet in a drawer after receiving the changed title with the idea of dragging out the metal box later. I’m certain, if I made a quick search through the League City home, I’d find the envelope labeled “IMPORTANT” and “DO NOT THROW AWAY” with “LEAKEY, TEXAS” all in bold letters on the front. Anyway, I decided I needed to spend a little time organizing the metal box, putting the papers toward the front that I’ll need once my mother dies. It saddened me to sort through these documents, but I know it’s best to do this now.

It’s natural, of course, that I followed the example set by my parents. My box nestles on the floor of the master bedroom closet. It, too, contains all of the important records from our lives. I feel secure knowing that in an emergency, I can confidently grab the box and have everything we need. I’ve made certain both my husbund and son know the content of our container. However, I realized that we’ve stuffed papers and documents into the box carelessly. One day soon, I’ll lug the box out of our closet and do a major reorganization. Then I'll place everything into a fireproof safe! Perhaps I’ll even make a list of all those important phone numbers and addresses, just as my father had done for us. A metal box will be one more tradition passed through our generations.

Eventually my parents had 2 boxes, which I still keep in 2024

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Deep Cleaning"

 

At the end of every summer, I tear through every room and clean the house to the military standards of my childhood. My personal war against dirt requires vinegar, bleach, and Orange Oil. I break all of the attachments for the vacuum cleaner, gather my feather duster, and pull out the steam mop. I muster all of my energy as I attack each room for a floor to ceiling assault.
            I don’t simply clean the rooms. Every drawer and closet receives personal scrutiny. I spend hours checking all the pens in the desks, sorting through papers scrunched into drawers, and make the executive decision:  KEEP, GIVE AWAY, THROW-AWAY. As I sweep from room to room, I swap out knickknacks to freshen up an area. My teapot collection migrated from the kitchen into the family room several days ago. That movement means each pot goes through a thorough washing before finding a new perch. This assures everything gets cleaned.
            My closet gets special attention during this offensive against dirt and clutter. I dump all my clothes onto the bed, a seemingly insurmountable mound, and begin the process of KEEP, GIVE AWAY, THROW-AWAY all over again. The clothing I keep, I check for missing buttons or pulled hems and take care of any small mending. I find an excellent movie on television, angle the ironing board in the perfect spot, and iron or press every item of clothing. My obsessive organizational oddities kick into full gear at this point. I don’t simply rehang my outfits into the closet. I decide on my strategy for order for the next few months and regulate my closet to that standard. Some years, my clothing becomes color and fabric coordinated. All red tops and blouses lined up neatly ranging from t-shirts to long sleeve silk. The blues, purples, whites, blacks all grouped neatly together. Following the tops are my skirts, then suits and finally pants. I organize them in this fashion because the floor of my closet has a cubby for organizing my shoes and I want clearance for easy access to that area. My shoes receive similar inspection as I decide to KEEP, GIVE AWAY, THROW-AWAY once again. I rotate summer flip-flops back into boxes, keeping out only one pair as I pull out dress sandals. All white shoes will shift back into boxes by Labor Day—another leftover rule of childhood. My deep cleaning stops only when I complete the garage. Then all of the items I’ve put into the donate pile get loaded into the car and taken to Goodwill.
              Year after year, I’ve run through this drill as the last cleaning spree before I returned to school or work. I do a similar cleaning over the Christmas holidays because I’m redecorating every room, and a smaller raid through the house over Spring Break. This year, however, my cleaning strike appears more hit-n-miss. I started in the kitchen and family rooms instead of my bedroom. I haven’t opened a drawer or assailed my closet. At the end of last summer, the obsession to deep clean even though I wasn’t returning to work nagged me into my routine. The realization that I’m actually retired—and can do this type of cleaning anytime I want sank into my consciousness a few days ago. I don’t have to conquer my entire house within a few days. I know I won’t shake off the deep cleaning bug just because I’m retired, but I can select a different schedule than sweating out the August heat to clean the garage!

Last week's deep clean! 2024

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman