In Plague-time

Pre-Need Estate Sale 

Michael Sedano 

Donut Dollies souvenir. Spec 4 Sedano squired around the Red Cross Girls
when they came to entertain the front lines. He was envied by all the troops.

I have been doing a top-to-bottom cleaning of my home’s storage spaces, finding memories and recovering artifacts acquired in the whirling gyre of 52 years together. Barbara is that falcon who cannot hear the falconer of time, not that I hope for a second coming of what we’ve forgotten. Were I to harbor that hope, it would turn quickly to despair.

I clean so I can remember, so I can find those memories, so I can share their stories with Barbara. So many things, she acquired many of them, they meant something to her.

Sin Sul Lo, "Korean Hot Pot," a delightful group meal. 

I started out with triple motivations. First, to eke out benefit from la quarentena’s imposed down-time, do chores. Second, I do not want to leave behind a jumbled mess for my daughter and granddaughter to decipher. Third, I want to see what I am leaving behind. I want to use some of this stuff myself, and get rid of the rest. I’m calling this my ongoing Pre-Need Estate Sale and Storytelling Circle

 

Junk expands to fill the space available. My house has a garage, an attic, a basement proving that law of junk physics. “Later,” is another name for these places in people’s homes. I reckon I’m not alone. Shove stuff into a box, find an empty horizontal space, fit that box into that space, close the door, and deal with it later.

Old Art Deco Glass, origins unknown, possibly Montréal ca. 1912

 Plague-time is later, now. It’s later than you think.

 

Just 4 tacos? I need one of these per person.

Back in March when California government quarantined us in-place, my place was looking outside my front room window. There was a world out there and that vista was its entirety.

Poetry & prose in real time from across America from the outset

 

I watched and wrote. Thelma T. Reyna, Altadena Poet Laureate-emerita, added one essay of mine to her new anthology. When the Virus Came Calling. Covid-19 Strikes America. Subtitled, Poetry & Prose In Real Time From the Outset, Reyna organizes the 45 voices chronologically into three divisions: I, Invasion January February; II, Seclusion March; III, Introspection April May ; IV Realizations June July.

The anthology has just hit the bookshelves, so I’ll share details as I have them. 

ISBN 978–0 –9969632-7-5