Things are now exactly where they should be
- Brett Hiner: A Work in Progress
- January 17, 2024
- 474
A recent conversation with one of my teenagers went something like this:
Me: “Are you incapable of picking your towel up off the bathroom floor and putting it back on the towel rack?”
Teen: “Huh?”
Or “Sorry, I had my earbuds in. What did you say?”
These are the go-to responses of our teenagers when posed with apparently difficult, albeit sometimes rhetorical questions. Pretending they do not understand the question, hoping the exhaustion of our day will just lead us to doing it ourselves anyway, is a skill they all assuredly possess. The skill of putting things back where they belong? Not so much.
But then sometimes I kind of get the sentiment — not when it comes to bathroom towels, mind you, just in the moments when putting things back where they go moves beyond the simple placement of an item.
The conclusion of the holiday season can be tough for some because it centers around this “putting things back where they belong” mindset. We find ourselves climbing ladders to take down the outside lights, gently removing the ornaments from the tree and placing them back in their Hallmark boxes, or wrapping the homemade ones in crinkly tissue paper to be placed in the decades-old shoeboxes in which they live 11 out of the 12 months of the year.
The homemade ones, especially, are often tied to a preschool or elementary school project, where memories of simpler times hang in our hearts as delicately as the ornament does on the tree.
Of note, this annual process also involves my wife and I asking each other, “Maybe it is time to get a new star for the tree?” Yet every year it also goes back in its box with the dimming lights and fading tree skirt. It has become a part of our children’s holiday memories and would be blasphemous if we were to change it now.
I do not doubt, however, that in 11 short months, it will go back where it actually belongs, sitting atop the tree, and we will find ourselves once again asking the same question.
This year marked the first holiday break where we had to take a child back to college after having her home for a few weeks. We have been blessed in that the transition, for both child and parent, has been celebratory; initial collegiate hurdles have been successfully jumped, and the hope of a bright future is securely in place.
However, for a few years at least, putting her back where she belongs will always include a series of “welcome home” statements from friends and family, followed by the inevitable “when do you head back?” I did not realize how often I ask that question, when running into former students, until I had a collegian of mine own. I am sure it is a question they tire of answering, only wanting to take a break from thinking of their home away from home and the pressures that often come with it.
But this season I also learned, or maybe was reminded of, not every “putting it back where it goes” has to be filled with the melancholic spirit.
For over 30 years, our family, in some capacity, has traveled to the Sugargrove Christmas Tree Farm in rural Ashland County to snag the centerpiece of most folks’ holiday decorations: the beloved tree. While the farm is teetering on the “becoming a bit too commercial” ledge, at its heart, its Norman Rockwellian spirit of hopping onto a horse-drawn wagon and being taken a few hundred yards away to chop down the family tree provides the kind of holiday memories and stories that linger for years.
The time Grandpa fell in the rooted tree hole. Our son asking, “Why do I always have to stand by the ‘possible’ tree when the rest of you go and find the actual tree?” The inevitable argument over who gets to cut the tree down. Returning to the barn with the tree and partaking of the cookies and hot chocolate that await each eager child and their frozen fingers.
With a child now in college, we were not sure if this would be the year we would have one less kiddo joining us on the Christmas tree seeking adventure. One never knows if the college schedule will align with the day-to-day life of a family’s hectic lifestyle, but sure enough, the question was asked via text: “Are we going back to Sugargrove to get the tree, and can I come?”
Whether the schedules aligned or not, the mere fact that the question was asked put a smile on our faces and a wonderful perspective change in our thinking: Putting things back where they go does not just mean in the physical sense, but in spirit as well.
Now do not get me wrong: Folded clothes, Christmas decorations and, most assuredly, bathroom towels have a place to go — as do books, tools and dinnerware. Psychologists will likely argue that by putting things back where they go, one creates a harmonious environment that promotes mental clarity and reduces stress.
I cannot think of anyone in my neighborhood of friends who would argue otherwise. But the logic, I think, exceeds the organizational sense and ventures into the philosophical.
To borrow a thought from Sir Paul McCartney, it is not just about putting things back where they go, but making sure you also sometimes get back to where you once belong, wherever that “where” is and for however long time is willing to give.
Brett Hiner is in his 27th year of teaching English/language arts at Wooster High School, where he also serves as the yearbook adviser and Drama Club adviser/director. When writing, he enjoys connecting cultural experiences, pop and otherwise to everyday life. He can be emailed at workinprogessWWN@gmail.com.