"I just killed my wife. Is that bad?"

I had to drag a tire this morning.  My wife helped.  We weren't broken down on the side of the road and I wasn't making repairs to #1's new car (which is older than he is) - I'll be doing that when I finish this post.  We were at Koa doing the kettle bell workout and getting a break from Russian Swings by burning up our calves and quads and lungs.  Writing got easier after I'd been at it for a few months.  This kettle bell business hasn't!

The big community clothing sale is going on this weekend at a local elementary school.  It's quite something and has grown since we've been here.  A few years ago we stopped just shopping and now sell too.  The unsold items go to charity.  The prep (tagging everything) and setup (getting everything into the school and to the right rooms) takes many hours and involves fighting for parking and table space with a thousand other people.  Okay, that's an exaggeration, we'll say 800 other people.  The best part is that you don't have to sit there all day - all the sellers take turns and work a 2 hour shift during the weekend.  It's very well organized and some folks about fifty miles north might want to take notes.

The selection of products to sell at the sale is always an interesting process.  The kids suddenly need everything they haven't touched in a year.  It reminded me that everything has a story.  It reminded me specifically of a Steven King story - "Needful Things" which I never read but did watch the movie - Ed Harris, Bonnie Bedelia, and Max von Sydow.  Each item in the store had something nasty attached to it and by the end of the film, evil was ruining the town.  (My spoiler alert was that it was a story by Steven King - they all end that way.)

I got to thinking two things about the story I wrote yesterday.  The first was that it was just a tad over 2k words - the daily output of Mr. King, according to his book and a great encouragement to me.  The second was that I wrote it very quickly so I wondered how that happened, especially considering that it wasn't the story I had been planning to write this week.  I came to the realization that, like the closets and toy chests in my house, there are objects in my mind that I don't often use but when I look in and see them I have an immediate emotional connection.

The great thing about writing instead of packing for the great community sale, is you don't have to give up your memories to make room for new ones.  The items that came home from the sale got me to thinking - what was the little boy like who wore that hat?  What happened to the person in Bangladesh that made this orange sweatshirt, was it orange when s/he made it?

I hope you never close your eyes, or your heart, to the stories you carry within.