I am certain that this is genetic…

It was one of the things that I’d later remember most about my Grandmother.

The magazines. Stacked neatly in her tall wooden barstool chair waiting for anyone to look through.

I never really understood why she had a barstool chair in her kitchen, since she didn’t have a raised bar to go with it and never had. And, it was altogether too wobbly to ever sit in. But, it was there–it’s sole purpose existing to hold her enormous pile of magazines.

Looking back, that stack actually acted as a bridge for the two of us–bonding us and giving us things on which to talk when I got to those awkward teenage years. It may sound superficial, but I loved picking up my favorite ones and seeing which ones she’d penciled my name by with a question mark to see if I’d like it.

We maybe ordered 1/10 of the things we penciled in–or even less than that. But, we’d sit pouring through the catalogs and invariably we’d end up talking about things at school and more. I know now that this was her way of staying connected to me during this time…when I know typically our age gap would have pulled us apart somewhat. And, I’m so grateful for that today.

Now, at my own home, my mother had the magazines too. But, it was an entirely different setup. I would get annoyed at the piles and piles of them, stacked everywhere. Magazines from years and years before that my mother was saving to read, or saving for an article. The neatnick in me would wait until she wasn’t home, and I’d purge them. I’m pretty sure that she never knew I did that, nor how much joy it brought me. And, I was definitely certain that she would have never really gone back and read that article or torn out the ones she was saving, so I didn’t care about tossing them. I resented those magazines for some reason. They represented the clutter in my home that at times made me feel like I didn’t belong there or too uncomfortable to invite over friends.

Now, I look back and I recognize that she had the magazine gene too. She just handled her addiction in a different way than my grandmother.

And, why is this all coming up, you might ask?

Well, because I am battling magazine overload myself right now. I don’t subscribe to THAT many, but as I look around I see them piling up too. I don’t have a convenient out-of-place barstool to stack them on either. So, I fear I’m falling into the cluttered stacker that I never wanted to be.

But, I do pour over them in the same way my Grandmother did. Making penciled notes to myself about recipes I want to try, along with slips of grocery lists. Folded down pages of things I want to do with the kids, organization tips, and just plain inspiring writing that I want to reread later.

And, so I’ll try to get a handle on the ‘zines as best I can, but I realize now that this is out of my control. It’s a part of my being, as much as my love of all things bacon and my inability to go to bed before midnight. And, I’ll remember back to my grandmother and “our” stack and smile a little today…