There was a time in my life, a long time ago, when I thought I might have a talent for stratigraphy. It was a lower-level geology course in which the concept was introduced to us through analysis of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Looking at the folds and thrusts in the rock was like being handed a key to the history of the organic and inorganic activity of the world.

Fossils below, rock folded and fossils above. Intrusions that suggested a molten world, one with the consistency of play-doh.

I wonder at the might-have-beens in all that. A decent stratigrapher could have made a pretty penny in the oil and gas game during my productive life, and what that path in the hard science of rock might have been like.

I was reminded of that long ago classroom time when I was starting on the office yesterday.

It is so nice in the country. The cold snap had snapped. It was comfortable in a wool shirt, and I marched resolutely to start in on the pile.

There is nothing whatsoever interesting about cleaning out the garage, except that the project revealed the sedimentary layers of a life. It was clear that the process that molds the earth molded me, too. The card-table from the barren little apartment; distinct levels of biologic stratigraphy evident. Five ominously large boxes labeled “Family Photographs.”

I know the contents of at least one of them is the mystery box that Big Mama once showed me in despair, saying she knew none of them- so that would be a pre-Cambrian igneous insertion in black and white amid Raven’s trays of Kodacolor slides.

I found clothing that needs to be washed and taken direct to the Good Will- must have been in those boxes for a good decade. Boxes and papers from the Phone Company- must have been from the period when the French Telecommunications giant Alcatel inserted thrust itself into my life.

And more. Some trash, and was marched over to the growing stack of boxes in the barn. Others poignant, and documented an upending of the regular strata into something that flowed like lava in passion.

The biostratigraphy of life, of interest only to me.

The challenge is to get it all in order so the kids can have someone haul it to the dump.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303