14 Year To-Do List

My tractor now sits inside my shop.

After all, where else would a person park a tractor when the mercury plummets to 20-below?

The shop was obviously built to house equipment, with monster sliding doors, a high ceiling and a concrete floor. Yet, for 14 years, we plugged in the tractor on the south side of the shop when it got cold.

The inside was filled with detritus from raising a hand one too many times at an auction, roadside treasures and nuts and bolts that I will need someday, just as soon as I remember from whence they came.

Organizing the shop has been on my to-do list for as long as we parked the tractor outside, ever since I packed my cool stuff in, only to discover my husband, Steve, had already laid his cool stuff precisely where I intended to put mine.

About six years ago, I started to clean out some of the junk in the shop. Steve was gone for a week so I decided that would be a good time.

I hauled two, 20-foot-long horse trailer loads to the dump.

When Steve returned, his eyes flashed. He raced to the shop, darting around stacks I had yet to move.

I told him that if he could identify 10 items that he would miss, I would go back to the dump and bring everything home.

He lost that challenge, but when he found out I threw away 20 empty 5-gallon pails, I had to apologize.

Apparently, I didn’t throw all of the pails away, though. I found 12 more in a back corner last week.

My daughter, Abby, was gone for a week so I had some alone-time.

Alone is different from lonely.

Use this time wisely, I told myself. Lonely will disappear if you take yourself far enough to embrace alone.

And it did.

I decided to tackle the shop.

My friend, Carly, was home from college and I had a stack of shelves ready to be assembled.

We started with a 2-foot set of five shelves and then piled stuff on them so we had room for the next 3-foot set.

Cardboard boxes went out the door. Wood working tools stayed.

I have no idea how to use wood working tools, but they interest me.

The next day, with the urgency of impending cold weather and no helper, I tossed the sorting schedule and just loaded shelves.

I found a couple of 5-gallon pails of 5W oil for diesel engines. Those were a score that saved some money.

I found enough chimney pipe for my next three-story home.

And if anyone needs Styrofoam cups, I have about a thousand left over from when we had a concession trailer.

Somehow, the act of tossing empty boxes into the sunshine also bounces brainwaves into sunny clarity.

As I moved shop tools, I realized that stepping through boxes and pails to find the keepers is like stepping through lonely to find my alone self. And stepping through lonely to find alone is like stepping through fear to find confidence.

I only need a single step.

Just a single step through the memories and the plans I used to have.

Then another step.

I dissolved into the job, finding acceptance in being alone, even satisfaction and confidence.

I looked at the tools I have to use in the future – the skills and experiences and, yes, the wood working tools – that will carry my steps toward the plans I have now.

And when I cranked the tractor at 13-below, it started right away.

Now, if only I can find a use for those pails.