purge

I do not know what came over me this morning. Nothing short of bizarre. Got up at the usual time, making my way to feed the animals, except I didn't go out to do that -- I veered toward what we affectionately call the art room. It's where the kids do their art projects, where Ed retreats for his business calls (it's the only space downstairs that has a door to close off noise), where I keep the last remaining bookshelves, where I have stacks of papers and folders that document and trace my life, my purchases, my applications, my hopes, despairs, frustrations! 

The thing is, the room is basically a mess. Oh, there are neat enough stacks. But any sensible order has been abandoned. I add things as they continue to come in. Car purchases, credit card theft documents, kid artwork, booklets on walking paths in France, I don't know what else. Everything! Papers, volumes of read material, some teaching texts, saved magazines. Even though I am not one who saves stuff, at one point, everything there had been needed, preserved out of necessity and then eventually forgotten.

So why did I go there this morning? I got it into my head that I am really done with keeping stuff. That I want empty and neat. That I dont care if a magazine contains a once treasured recipe. I will find a new recipe. I want to empty out everything!

Having moved so much in my life, I have been good about not accumulating. My childhood posessions, notebooks, mementos? My parents threw them all out. And then, when my marriage ended, I did a major purge of all our posessions (my ex took what he needed first, of course). I moved to a small apartment. I kept little from my past life. And then I moved to a condo and I purged again. And finally, when I moved to the farmhouse, I really kept just the essentials. We moved nearly everything ourselves in two loads of a small truck. There wasn't much.

And yet the papers and folders of stuff and work projects and home projects and warranties and notices and divorce papers and retirement applications -- they kept coming and somehow the farmhouse rooms and especially that art room, no longer looked bare and scaled back. 

I suppose the straw that broke the camel's overloaded back happened this month. When I visited my younger girl and saw how neatly HER bookshelves were kept. (Both my daughters are super neat.) And finally, yesterday, when I helped with the offer to purchase Steffi's house and I had that twinge of envy because the house looked so refreshingly bare! I imagined someone moving into this naked space and how in all likelihood it would fill with clutter quickly and I groaned at the thought of how rapidly it would lose that virgin beauty of a clean space.

You dont need to move to get rid of stuff. All you have to do is pretend that you are moving! And I thought -- what if I just took one shelf at a time and eliminated practically everything on it? What if?!

And that is what I did, for five hours straight, with only a two minute walk in the garden (it's raining today)...

(this Persian fritillary did not like last year's spring; this year? happy as a clam)

(and the later season tulips are making a valiant effort to give me a tulip season after all. I spray them with a homemade hot pepper spray without fail!)

... where I pick some fallen daffodils for the table. And a ten minute pause for breakfast.

Ed fed the barn and sheep shed animals, then he helped carry out bags upon bags of library and Goodwill donations. We filled the recycling bin totally. 

It all felt so good!

I'm not done with that room. I still have two filing cabinets to purge and I have to wipe clean old laptops and get rid of those as well. But honestly, the bulk of the trashing of my past life is behind me. Letters (some unpleasant reminders of how some people decided to demonize my life's choices as I moved through the various stages of my life), folders, brochures, maps, work and retirement portfolios -- most of this stuff is now officially garbage!

Yeah!

And then it was time to pick up the kids.

A cold and rainy day means that we spend zero time outside. 

So, you can call this a home bound day. What a change from my weeding and clearing of the flower fields! Weeding out accumulated junk is harder than pulling creepy invasives from perennial beds. But just as satisfying! And reading books with the kids is a perfect cap to my indoor day. With soup in the evening to soothe the soul. All that history thrown at you can be really disconcerting! Supper with Ed, on the couch? A perfect and perfectly affectionate antidote.

with so much love...