Over Memorial Day weekend, I started cleaning out the garage. Or, as I told Ann, go Marie Kondo on it — getting rid of a lot of the contents, one way or another. Ann said she thought that might be a misinterpretation of Ms. Kondo’s ideas, but I don’t care, since I have no intention of watching her videos or TikToks or however she gets her message out. Call it willful misinterpretation.

The process continues, sometimes on the weekends since, sometimes in the evenings. I’ve made some progress. Besides simple decluttering, a lot of dust and leaves and other debris has been swept out. The worst of it involved removing boxes torn by an invading squirrel in winters past.

So far I’ve filled our 90-gallon trash can three times, along with the 90-gallon recycle bin, and I’m working on a fourth for each. Other items have been given to a resale shop. A small number of things have come into the house, since I’ve deemed them too useful to be in the garage.

I’ve found things I’d forgotten we had, and which should have gone long ago. Such as items from earlier years in the lives of my daughters. This box and its contents, for instance.

It moved with us from the western suburbs. I know that because I wrote which bedroom the movers were to take it, in the new house — this house — nearly 19 years ago. Ann used it in those days. Ann, who’s in college now. Lilly probably used it before that. Lilly, who’s a grown woman in Seattle.

Did I feel sentimental about it? Slightly. Very slightly. Enough to post the picture here. But that’s all. Knowing that absolutely no one would want the dirty old plastic within, I emptied the box into the trash can, and then (after taking the picture), broke the box down for recycling. Whatever sentiment I felt ebbed away as I inhaled some dust.