Four years ago I typed words on my computer screen that changed my life. "Craig's List worked when I sold my car..." With that I posted myself on Craig's List in a moment of panic over the fact that I was pushing 44, had been a widow for 11 years and had not had a single date that year (it was mid-November). Yesterday I returned to that amazing web site and typed, "Free on curb: My life so far."

Four years ago my posting was on-line for under 24 hours, just long enough for someone whose friend had told him... "Craig's List worked when I had that extra concert ticket." Mr. Maple Leaf read my note to the world (well, Seattle-Tacoma) about being a regular blood donor and 5'2" single parent who always tried to return library books on time. If it wasn't love at first email exchange it was by Christmas Eve, having courted the old-fashioned way, in words.

Now we have both sold our homes and are preparing to merge two households into one, positioning to be under one roof by Christmas Eve. I could pretend that it has taken me four years to convince Mr. Maple Leaf to move to Ballard, but the truth is that has taken me four years to accept someone coming between me, and my beloved block.

This 1905 pseudo-Victorian is my first home, and I thought it was forever. It was where I raised my daughter, where my late husband left a message in chalk on the garage wall that I found after he died. How could I ever let go? Then my daughter started working on college applications and I realized that she was already gone. The fianc/ patiently entertained my fears of change and fanciful ideas for a renovation that would allow him to stand upright in the bathroom.

As Marvel Kolseth and I agreed in September, as long as there is a basement, why not hold onto objects that might be useful later? Leftover lumber, garage sale finds, boxes that my mother began mailing to me in an attempt to rid her closets of my grade school notebooks. Add the projects my daughter continued to produce for school, like the cardboard tree to demonstrate maple-sugaring. Then there were my late husband's "treasures" -concert ticket stubs, cassette tapes, travel souvenirs (an Aloha letter opener) and his own childhood art projects.

"Free on curb" I posted on Sunday morning and then rang screaming through the house for dramatic effect when my daughter pointed out that I needed to get dressed and put something on the curb. Within 30 minutes cars with loud mufflers were pulling up, a cast of regulars with already stuffed automobiles. There was the occasional wildcard such as the prim looking woman driving a Mini Cooper who scooped up all the disc golf paraphernalia, a coffee table and a television (later returned).

Perhaps I should have warned Mr. Maple Leaf about my Craig's List post before he arrived to help me sort tools but it was an impulse act, just as it was four years earlier. At least I hadn't posted myself again, just the last 20 years. Martin is a planner, an engineer type who uses a level to hang a picture instead of just hammering a nail any old place. The look on his face was indescribable as he realized that there were strangers in front of my house picking through tubs of hinges and tucking power tools under their arms. This is who I am, I keep warning him, someone who lives their life out loud, in print, on-line.

The little boys across the street declared the toy box contents "too girly" but older male browsers recognized a kindred spirit in my late husband's workbench offerings. Jim collected things, not as a collector but as a person who saw possibilities in other people's trash. He used to work on his car as a hobby and had a myriad of mysterious greasy tools for his infinite project - his green Opel. I meant to sort before piling basement stuff on the sidewalk and table, but then it seemed simpler to take them out into daylight first. My neighbor found the beloved wind-up Peter Rabbit that played "Here comes Peter Cottontail," in my daughter's crib every night her first two years.

By dusk there were just a few remnants, scraps of lumber, chairs with broken seats, the detritus of my life to date had been picked over by strangers, separating the Beany Babies from old campaign buttons, giving objects back their value. Outsiders had done my work for me, arriving through the magic of "Craig's List," sorting my past between raindrops.

"Thank goodness for vultures," I told Mr. Maple Leaf. Thanks to them I have had my bones picked clean and am ready to start my life afresh, just a half a mile from the place that will always be my first real home.