My Car as Archaelogical Dig

     Laurel and Hardy move items to the car.
       It's the end of the week and the end of the day as I roll the cart with the easel and various papers and materials out to my car. The windy day pushes things around and as I unload stuff from my car to make room for the easel I look up to see the cart sliding into the parking lot. Paper's fly. Laurel and Hardy are here, chuckling as I run around.
     Then in my moment of desperation a "molach" an angel appears at my side.
"Looks like you need some help!" the smiling young man says. He is the husband of one of my colleagues. Quickly we load the easel in, the hatch shuts. I gather up the papers and materials. My kind helper rolls the cart back to the door and I push everything in and shut the doors.

Time rolls on. I drive around with these archaelogical layers of memory and eventually find time to unload. But often I am tired and the stuff rides around with me as I go to my various places.
 I glance at the layers of memory.

Going back in time I see the long piece of material that was once the Great Wall of China for the Chinese Opera years ago...years when we had so many more students and every year we had a huge Chinese Opera. We printed it with large sponges on this light porous material. Back then we would have an evening of Chinese folk tales orchestrated by Shira our wonderful music teacher.
Two classes alternated playing instruments as the scenery shifted and the marvellous silk paintings done by the students shimmered. Those were our glory days in art and music and for the school. In art we would sometimes create boulders for a play out of papier mache or paint long, long silk banners of the sea. Our Chinese calligraphy on rice paper decorated the halls. As we painted our Chinese calligraphy in art chinese music played. I told the children we would soon have a visitor " Peach Ling Sun!" a Chinese princess from ancient times would visit.
     The children knew it was me of course " Your shoes are the same as Anita's and so is your watch!"hahahaha....Just a few weeks ago I had an abbreviated Chinese unit with my class of six. Peach Ling Sun arrived and somehow this sometimes rambunctious class calmed down and we had chinese tea and a pleasant time. So there in the car is another layer of archival memory embodied by my flowered chrysanthemum robe that I wore.

         Some items get dispersed...the large model of a 3 masted boat is now something my brother paints....the art games are coming in handy with my friend who suffers memory loss..and other things get thrown out.

    Piece by piece I gather up the past and put it in a box that lands in my car and eventually my garage..or with wisdom makes it to be used by someone else.

Eventually everything becomes the province of memory and all those moments that were once so lively and creative become relics, totems of a time gone by.
      The cabinets will empty. The shelves cleared out. Piece by piece I will discard, keep or recycle my 28 years of teaching and memories.
    The chrysanthemum robe will return to the back of my closet. The Great Wall of China printed with large sponges will make a good Hide A Mess cloth...I will use the easel in front of my house to advertise my occasional art sales...all going round and round as time rolls by.