Purple Scissors

With all of the shut-downs and shelter ins we have all experienced with the Covid-19 virus there are only so many movies you can watch and so many books you can read. I decided to get busy with “long overdue” spring cleaning and working on projects that have been put off for 30-35 years. In our busy days when our three sons were at home, things were hectic and all their memories were tucked away in boxes and crates. Over the years the stack of crates grew and grew until our walk-in closet was full. Our twin sons were born in 1991 and welcomed home by their three-year-old brother so we have over 30 years of school papers, projects and memories.

I am retired and my husband is an IT tech working from home. I decided it was time to tackle this project, from birth to 12th grade, plus college. Other crates contained my recipe collection, pages torn out of magazines and newspapers quickly tossed into crates during the busy child rearing years, as well as many handwritten recipes going back to 1851.

We sorted these papers into crates for each boy, trimming and cutting torn edges with scissors as we were on a time travel back through time…things we forgot about in our hectic daily pace, stories that made us laugh and stories that made us cry, sometimes because they were so poignant, naïve and honest in their composition. Using scissors, we trimmed the ragged edges of artwork that is irreplaceable, ticket stubs to concerts, souvenirs from trips, things saved from magazines, a time capsule of their life.

The recipes spanned from my youth to current, 63 years. With our favorite pair of Fiskars, we clipped and trimmed and organized and before we knew it the year Covid hit the USA was over and we were almost through.

We’re combining these memories and recipes in 1-inch binders and placing in page protectors with clean sheets of archival paper behind them. It took us in an odyssey of a time capsule of their lives that was so amazing. Will they look at these? I know they will for Cory, our eldest, is 33 with two little boys of his own. Morgan and Mason are now 30 and they are all waiting to see the final product.

Will we cook all of these recipes? Maybe some but what an archive for my grandchildren. They would never have been looked at in the crates.

I remember many times when my husband came into our room. I had been sitting on the edge of the bed, trimming and cutting on a rolling table surrounded by a sea of clippings for trash on the floor. And I had never been happier. You see, I can’t go outside and garden because I am wheelchair bound waiting for knee and hip replacement. He does the gardening and I am the “family archivist”.

Not only did I have our family’s memories but I inherited my parent’s and grandparent’s back to 1851 as well as my in-laws’ memories. Some papers had been stored for over hundred years and were damaged from spills, creatures, or mishandling and had to be carefully trimmed with scissors to save them.

So now we are working on the placement of the articles into binders, cutting decorative edges with a wide variety of scrapbooking scissors to give the pages each a unique personality.

There were newspapers back to the birth of our sons and all of their achievements to current that had to be cut and trimmed from these papers and put with coordinating mementos.

What has been my favorite pair of scissors for this project? A 25-year-old pair of Fiskars I found years ago that belonged to our twin son, Morgan. They still cut like they did when we bought them and when I am through with them, they will go back in his crate of items from school that can’t go in the albums. How we remember them, his child-size hand using those purple handled scissors and concentrating on the paper, (pre-printed art projects) as best as he could…no perfect cuts, some uneven edges but put together with pride. It’s amazing how a simple pair of scissors can bring back a flood of memories. I feel so much more involved in this project knowing I am using the same pair of scissors he used as a child.

So, the next time you are doing spring cleaning and rounding up things to donate to a thrift store, put those childhood school supplies back in that drawer. Maybe when you are in your golden years embroidering or working on that other put off projects, pull out those “purple scissors”, let the memories take over and people will wonder what you are smiling about.

The confessions of a pack-rat Mom.