It's a big job, but someone's gotta do it

And that someone is about six blocks west.

I'm utterly uber-beat. This past weekend, I helped my parents prepare their 2600 sq ft home for its first open house. They've lived there for 33 years.

I give my parents a lot of credit. They picked one heck of a house when they moved into my childhood home. Once about half of the contents were removed, I could for the first time see how incredibly huge the place is. It will make some nice family very happy, and apparently, family is the key word. Today's open house yielded about 16 couples, 6 of whom were expecting a child or had newborns. This surprised the heck out of the realtor. There must be something very fertile about the place, and I told my mom it was a good thing I didn't get knocked up while living there. As if I could have gotten lucky in high school. You laugh, but it's true.

Clearing someone else's house is one thing. Clearing your own is entirely another. There is no doubt in my mind that the energies of years past are firmly stored in a house. And these energies are processed as you go through different rooms, piles of stuff, decisions, and as you rinse rags in the utility basin.

And when you start to look at anything through a new lens, a new idea, a new vision, something is going to shake loose. It's not easy, it's sometimes painful, but it's not without benefit to everyone involved - even to those who hang on tightly.