You don't honor the past by burdening the present.

I heard that years ago, and even though I don't know exactly what is meant by it, intuitively it makes sense to me.

Each fall, following the more carefree days of summer, I look for ways to take control of the present, to put order back into my life.

Meals are more planned, exercise becomes part of my routine and every nook and cranny of our home — the linen closet, the kitchen cupboards, the mudroom — becomes the target of my scrutiny.

In an attempt to "unburden the present," I work to get rid of the things from the past.

I'm not always successful.

Take, for example, the basement. On makeshift shelves lining the mudroom walls and scattered along the edges of the furnace room are boxes and boxes of stuff.

Canning jars from my gardening days that haven't been used in a decade, towels that don't match the bathroom's new colors, Melmac dishes once belonging to my in-laws, bedding worn thin by one too many washings, even living room tables and lamps that simply have fallen out of favor.

When I suggest to my husband that we get rid of these things, something I do every year, he reminds me that someday soon our children will have homes of their own, and maybe they'll want them. Worn bed sheets? Melmac dishes? I don't think so.

"We've had them this long," he says. "We might as well keep them a few more years."

This from a man who still has the Lovin' Spoonful T-shirt his parents bought him in high school. (Notice I say "has," not "wears." There's a size problem that even he can't ignore.)

Turning to other areas of our home, I ask my son to clean off his bedroom shelves, which still house remnants of a sports trading card collection that he abandoned when he entered high school (he's in his fourth year of college). He says he'll do it over Thanksgiving break.

Which Thanksgiving? I wonder.

And when I question my teenage daughter's decision to keep all those summer sandals she has — every color of the rainbow, and then some — she explains how each pair matches a top of similar color. If she gets rid of them now, she'll only end up having to buy more next summer (which she'll do anyway).

Eventually I retreat to my bedroom closet, where I have more control over what gets saved and what will be bundled for Goodwill. There's an out-of-style tweed jacket. Give away. My well-worn summer PJs. Pitch. That beautiful, pale orange silk blouse that I haven't worn in years, the one that matched a suit I outgrew. The one whose unusual color makes it hard to find another suit to match.

As I go to place the blouse in the giveaway pile, I remember its coolness against my skin and how its soft, round collar folded gracefully against the lapels of the suit jacket.

The blouse doesn't take up much room in the closet, I tell myself, placing it back on the hanger. Surely

keeping it won't be too heavy a burden.