All tagged Midwest

The Library of Things

I am from the “heart of it all,” where single family homes are islands surrounded by oceans of grass. Where garages full of tools—park the car on the drive—hide away the lawn mower, smelling of gasoline and fresh-cut clippings. A wall of plastic tubs: Christmas lights, extension cords, boxes of rope, camping gear in rusacks too big to be practical and too sentimental to throw out. Bags of fertilizer and empty flower pots live beside bits and bobs saved “just in case,” because “you never know.” It’s easy to become a packrat when you’re not forced to make the ongoing decision about what to keep and what to chuck away.