If only or what if

Hah! It’s not the if only of several weeks ago. It has to do with the ould verbs. Could, would, should. Will have to check the etymology. Is it subjunctive? Oh dear, here one gets into Old English. I could have, I would have, I should have. None of which is what I did.

However, this led me to think of my small Orvieto apartment where, when I moved down from the multiple rooms I called home in the country. City life meant trying to fit countless things into a minimum space. And now of course, since I can no longer live even there, it’s a matter of hoping my sons can figure out where to find what I know is there. Despite detailed instructions, they find them difficult to follow..  Maybe only another woman could figure out my rather scatterbrained reasoning. That long woolen scarf with geometric designs, the soft sweater in the bottom drawer of the bureau, the box with medicines,  periodically checked to see if they have lapsed, and countless photographs and instructions with passwords which I keep misplacing and forgetting – well I could find them if only I could hop out of my wheelchair.

I can visualize rolling up my t-shirts to make them fit into a box on one of those ridiculous triangular shelves to one side of the closet in the bedroom. It may be the box on the second shelf from the top, or the second from the bottom. I sometimes wonder who the architect was and hope he is now in purgatory trying to fit his belongings into impossible spaces.

So, if only I had labeled all my various boxes as I should have. But then come to think of it, I originally did. Except with the change of seasons, the contents changed. What used to be heavy sweaters, got slimmed down to t-shirts. I don’t remember now what instructions I followed in rolling up my long-sleeved cotton t-shirts s so they would take less space. They did look nice and neat, purple, black and white.  As the seasons advanced and the contents of the boxes changed, I didn’t always change the labels. I should have, I could have, I would have if I had been better organized. The same holds for those boxes, lined up beneath the shelves as you come in. Once labeled winter gym pants or gloves, they now hold completely different types of apparel. But since even that category was never fated to last long, depending on the months and the weather, I figured there was no sense in making a new label. Some hold copies of my book on Orvieto. But I know where they are and can pull them out when Antony needs them.

The books on the shelves under the window in my bedroom of course are a different matter. You can look at the titles, perhaps switch some around, lining up Shakespeare with Shakespeare, Elizabeth Strout with her Olive Kitteredge and Lucy Barton books. You can always find what you need without spreading them all over the bed.

Putting order into your belongings, or your life, is much more difficult than it seems. If only you had thought of it in time, what would you, what could you, or what should you have done.