Seeing the Elephant/Eating the Elephant

The topic of elephants in Nevada seems a bit ludicrous, particularly since there are none, at least in Northeastern Nevada. However, we have some good replicas in the area, one of them featured at the California Trail Center

A couple of weekends ago when my older son, Jeff, was in town, we toured the California Trail Center, which, by the way, is a great place to take out-of-town visitors. Featured at the beginning of the exhibit depicting the various experiences of the westward travelers is a statue of an elephant.  

Accompanying it are plaques explaining what “seeing the elephant” meant to the explorers, adventurers, and pioneers.

Wikipedia has a succinct summary defining the phrase as “gaining experience of the world at significant cost.” If you’re interested in the history of the phrase, you can Google the topic as the article is well-written.

For my family, however, the phrase, “remember how to eat an elephant” has more meaning, principally because we closely resemble the classification of “hoarders.” Of course we like to call ourselves “collectors.” But you get the idea.

Warning:  For those of you who have a place for everything and keep everything in its place, the remainder of this post will make no sense, whatsoever.

In defense of those of us who have problems discarding items in our homes and garages, blame this trait on living through the Great Depression or being raised by anyone who did so. There is always the fear that you might be able to use the item (should you discard it) that has perched on the top shelf of a cupboard, unused, since it was placed there ten years ago.

After cleaning out/sorting belongings of two sets of parents, now deceased and now one husband, deceased (who LOVED to collect things), my sons and I have grown into a love/hate relationship with the phrase concerning how to eat an elephant

For example, at this point in my life, my two-stall garage with an additional stall in the back needs to come to a state of orderliness. This is one huge “elephant” for me and when I see “sort out garage” glaring at me from my To-Do List, my first impulse is to shove the list under a pile of papers and go read a back!

However, when I earnestly considered “eating one bite of the elephant at a time” I decided I would go through a cabinet in the back garage, sorting and tossing, with the goal of moving Christmas ornaments off high shelves to the cupboard which I can reach easily.

After spending an afternoon of sorting, filing, and tossing, only one shelf was cleared, but I reported to my sons that I had “chewed off a toenail of the elephant.”  And so it continued, until the cabinet was emptied out and the ornaments now made accessible.

There are many more shelving units, drawers, and cabinets to sort, but as long as I don’t think about the huge task as a whole and work on it one shelf or drawer at a time—“one bite at a time”-- I will eventually get that garage in shape.

Note to self:  I need to sort out my Christmas ornaments as there is no way five boxes of varied ornaments can fit on a 3 ft. tree and in my small houseJ