Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

It's one of two things; it's either the responsibility of what to do with all the stuff or the endless possibilities of what could be done with it that drives me crazy. It makes me feel that I have to take action. There is something taxing about receiving things that someone no longer wants.  And the worst part is when that something was valued by someone in the past and he or she is -- handing it off to me.
I am not talking about things one is happy to receive: like a madeleine pan or a tiny julienne tool. Even those things are becoming hard to justify. How often will I make madeleines?
It was the weighty gift of three bags full of wool that set me thinking for days. A Thursday evening knitting group, I thought, would be the ideal way to use up all of the colourful wool in three large bags - bags so large, I might add, that I could not even sneak them in past my partner to hide them in a closet. Then: maybe I could knit gloves for soldiers overseas - or make items and sell them to raise funds - or knit socks for the Russian army. There must be a cold war, somewhere. Maybe this would be a way to break the ice.
The wool had come my way from a friend who said that he wouldn't be able to use all of what he had in his lifetime, which set me to thinking about how long it would take me to use up this gift, which he said was just the beginning of a major sorting-out underway. I spread it out and as I sat surrounded by it Sunday evening, I thought, what now?
The second gift arrived at the end of last week: a box full of teacups and saucers that match a few pieces that I already own. "I know you'll really appreciate these," she said, handing me the box with a smile. And I do, no matter my already-bulging china cabinet.
Doing a quick flip through one of my daughter's textbooks, I read about Buddhists, their respect for nature and their dislike of waste.
They weave the cloth for their robes and when the garments wear out, they uses the good pieces for coverlets. When the coverlets wear out, they use the fabric strips for rugs. When the rugs wear out, they use the scraps mixed with a paste to repair holes in walls.
I wondered what today's university students think as they read this example of a frugality practiced by so few of us today.
I can remember after learning to knit that my mother and I used to save the yarn leftovers, which we used for afghans, but that there were still leftovers after that and I was impatient that there seemed to be no end or completion in sight. Still, we even used the yarn ends left over from sewing up knitted items and used these for stuffing pillows or other craft items for our church bazaar. Seems like another epoch, that kind of scrimping.
Yes, sir, those three bags full had got me to thinking about the unfinished  work yet to be tackled: fabric salted away and ready to sew, necktie quilts to be made, piles of books to be read and how could I possibly get all of this done with so much knitting to be done?
But then I realized I could instead think of all that I had learned over the years - all of the items that I had created from raw materials: dresses and socks and needlepoint pictures and rugs and afghans and so much more. I imagined what all of those raw  materials would look like in one place and said a quiet thank you that there were only three bags (give or take a few projects currently in the making) and not three rooms or more full.
Before giving me the wool, my friend said I was one of the few people he knew who would appreciate it. I don't know about being one of only a few, but I do appreciate it.
There's nothing like the smell of pure wool. Some is undyed, with the feel of lanolin still in the hanks. Other bright-coloured wool is on cones, waiting to become a one-time-only twist of vivid colours.
In a time when so much of what we do is virtual and untangible, three bags full of possibility seems not just manageable, but inviting, after all.