Finished a Week of Expunging

At least once per year, usually around New Years, Herman and I do a house purging. This year it came early, because after the wretched news of another mass shooting, we needed a mental tonic.

We started by cleaning out our garage and shed, donating or throwing away everything we no longer need or use. Those two areas produced two truckloads of stuff. Then we focused on the inside of the house, the closets, which produced another truckload of donatables.

I don’t know why, but purging always brings me joy. I’ve never been a packrat, and the fewer possessions I have around me, the more liberated I feel. Possessions weigh me down, shackle me. They take energy, pull my attention to them, clutter my mind.

One of my happiest times in the last several years came when Herman and I first moved into our Palm Springs house. During the first two weeks—before the moving van arrived with all our belongings—we lived in an empty house. Only an air mattress and sleeping bags in the bedroom, a card table and chairs in the dining room, and our laptops. No pictures on the walls, no TV, no writing desks, nada. I felt so free. With nothing but white walls, I felt I could remake myself into anything I wanted. I could be someone new each day. Then the furniture and artwork arrived, and with it came all my personal history. And I was back to being that person again, anchor into that mindset by all those things.

I believe it’s true, that the things we gather around us do define who/what we are. It’s why people hoard. The more things you gather, the more tightly expressed you become. All those things are a visual manifestation of who we are, they define us, and that gives most people a great deal of comfort. Not me; I like existing with as few boundaries/definitions as possible.