I have a habit (not my best one, I know) of cleaning up an area by moving some of the items to a new out-of-the-way spot and then just leaving them there. It tends to be in a relatively non-intrusive spot and then things can just sit in that spot for FOREVER. Such was the case with my cloth masks.
One of the early COVID-era oddities was the different ways family kept their masks organized - I remember seeing FB posts of bags labeled with each family member, masks hanging on key hooks (who needed keys - we weren't going out anyway), and others who had baskets like us. The basket sat on a table right by our door so we'd remember to take a mask before leaving the house.
Of course, there were 6 different types of masks because each person had a preferred style and we had multiple masks for each person. The basket was 1 foot long and half a foot wide and it was overflowing with masks.
When we switched to medical masks, the basket stayed where it was for awhile (who knew if we'd need them again) and then eventually moved to an out-of-the-way counter in the office. There it has stayed...until this morning.
While it's not really cleaning out chametz for Passover, this morning I was caught by a need to clean up that area of the office and finally, finally, rid our house of these masks. We still have a supply of medical masks, if needed, but there was something both sad and freeing by dumping the cloth masks into the trash. Sad because it reminds me of a time of fear, isolation, angst, and life interrupted and freeing because I was removing this physical vestige of that difficult time. We recently noticed a bunch of these (Jeff even spoke about it in his sermon last week) - the "Masks Required" signs on places where they are NOT required, the "stand 6 ft apart" markers on the ground that people ignore. These reminders have an emotional weight and I, for one, am glad to have gotten rid of some of mine. I feel lighter already.
Now onto the cabinets...
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