The weather around here can be very cruel and unpredictable. Just when you think that things are improving, it turns out that they are not. One day we think summer has finally arrived and the next day, that thesis is disproved. Out comes the winter jacket and the gloves you didn’t think you’d see until next winter.
Once a year, my wife (the lovely Roselle) holds a tag sale and sweeps through our house in Great Barrington like a tornado. The one that she hosted this year might as well have been in a tornado. It was cold and windy and nothing made a lot of sense. Some people came to Roselle’s sale dressed for summer, including women in short shorts, while others appeared in clothing more appropriate for the frozen north.
When Roselle is preparing for the annual tag sale, nothing is safe. If you want to hold onto a prized possession that has been with you for years, forget about it. She comes into my study and books disappear. You all know exactly what I mean. Things of ours that have been hanging around since our college days are gone.
Since the history of our lives is reflected in the books and other knickknacks that we have collected over the years, it can be depressing to look at the space where they have always been and find them gone. So, for example, if you used a book in a doctoral or master’s thesis and all of a sudden it isn’t there in its usual place, you get the feeling that something is not right. If, like me, you had a political science course in state and local politics so many years ago, and if that book, which has been on your library shelf for all these many years, is suddenly displaced, your world view and orientation may shift. Now if it was you who moved a critical book around in your library, then shame on you. On the other hand, if a member of your family has done the dirty deed, that is something else entirely.
When it’s tag sale time, there have to be spousal discussions about what goes and what stays. At one point several years back, I began to collect children’s toys and Roselle put them out in this recent tag sale. Interestingly, a lot of people were attracted to the toys. Maybe I’m not the only adult collector. Some obviously thought that their grandchildren and children might want them. We never really know what we have that might prove desirable to someone else.
Most of the attendees of our yearly tag sale are women—and women and men are, well, different. I have a couple of suits, but women are often into various outfits. For the most part, men aren’t like that. Of course, age has a lot to do with how and what we acquire. Old guys like me are not all that likely to spend a lot of money on clothes. Maybe some men are, but not me.
The weather has everything to do with your fortunes. If it is cold outside and you have left a window partially open, your study may be cold. As a result, you had better believe that the temperature has everything to do with what you are wearing. If you put on a sweatshirt that may lead you to act differently because you are warm or cold. You may not believe me about this but please think about it. There are so many intervening variables that account for our actions that it really is necessary to figure out why we do what we do.
