The Backpack Press

March 6. 2015

Finances are now decluttered.

I’ve always prided myself in the way I organize my finances, pay my bills, afford things. But even the best system degrades over time. I don’t have any delusions of grandeur – I just want to be able to afford my life. I cannot compete with Donald Trump, but I put myself on a kind of a spectrum and I think I’m O.K.

I moved some money around, paid some bills, charted the next few months, and then went out with some friends for drinks and met my daughter and her friends for dinner and Flamenco, which is always my favorite way to spend a Friday night.

What I am finding about the 40 Bags is that for every decluttering effort there is a reciprocal added value. Take the drek out, clear the stuff out of the way, and you find yourself. The stuff really does weigh you down. I’m going to take on the second shelf of my music library tomorrow with the goal of finishing the tossing part by Sunday night so I can then focus on the giving away part. And when that’s done, I can have cleared and cleaned shelves and finally, some space.

I’m not a hoarder and in fact, I always have very little clutter, so this challenge has been, well, a challenge. But I know that I can replace most of my VHS tapes with DVDs or Hulu and Netflix and when I’m done clearing out my music, I can sleep better knowing I’ve shipped off the good stuff to friends who teach. The whole process has been illuminating, liberating, and instructional. Stuff goes out, goes away – and what’s left has real meaning.

There’s this wonderful woman in Japan who says to empty out your closet and not keep any clothes that don’t spark joy. I want to find that joyful spark everywhere, and I am confident now that I can do it. I will be celebrating with chocolate marshmallow Easter eggs.

March 5. 2015

I cleaned more random paper off my desk. I now can put things into this great metal organizer and I’ve started using a file drawer to keep important mail. The organization is helping me spend less time looking for things!

And I have finished with one shelf of my music library – all Dumb Xeroxes gone, all 20-year-old ratty file folders gone and I have acquired three great double wall shipping boxes to send my sheet music on outta here! Four more paper shopping bags have gone to the recycling room and next week, my son will be here to help us get the books out that we are donating to the library.

The next step will be – after I’ve de-Xeroxed myself – to put like objects together and then determine what stays, what goes. I have a particular fondness for my scores, but I may only keep the operas I have sung.

March 4. 2015

Today, I actually walked out the door on my way to work, carrying twin bags of bye-bye Dumb Xeroxes!

This was a little moment. In most of my hauling and sorting and tossing, I have not actually walked out the door of my house with a bag of anything. I did my laundry and while I was in the laundry room, I tossed a shirt into the bin along with about 6 bags of sheets, towels, and clothes. But that didn’t have the same impact because I wasn’t throwing it all away, I was “donating” it.

No, no, today was different.

I took two Trader Joe’s bags to my recycling room and I look forward to doing that again and again. Liberation!

And while I am cleaning out my music library, I am also putting like objects together – for the very first time. In my first library, when I started building this back in the early 1980s, I organized it by composer, so all Mozart with Mozart, all Scarlatti, then all Verdi. But now, I think I want to sort songs with songs, operas with operas, piano music with piano, and Broadway musicals with, you guessed it – Broadway musicals.

And yes, I will be sending cartons of music to my friend – I haven’t told her about it yet, so, shhhhh … But I will also keep my favorite pieces along with my autographs. I got a second look at them and they really are pretty neat. Although, I don’t even remember meeting Mirella Freni.

March 3. 2015

Two more bags of dumb Xeroxes – on their way off the shelves of my music library to the recycling room. Yea!

I’ve discovered that I have some music where I do not have the actual published music and the Dumb Xerox is all I have. But I have absolutely no reason to keep it when, if given the chance to perform this music again, I could purchase the score.

I read today that the last music store in New York is closing. I spent much more time at Patelson’s, back in the day, than at Frank’s, but it saddens me to see this type of store go. I loved shopping for music. The real pros would come into the store while I was there and just belly up to the counter and say, “I need the Sonata #X or the Concerto in Y.” I never knew what I wanted so I would just thumb through the scores to let the music inspire me – and it did! I found Schubert or Strauss songs that way and I found American and Old English songs that way. I never knew what I wanted! But I really wanted to shop. And imagine some day I’d be pro enough to belly up.

Clearing out my library has been a real exercise. I am finding that I never ever performed something like half the music I have. So I am going to donate it to a friend who teaches singing. It’s about time the universe heard this glorious stuff, and it’s way past time I got it out of my house and into some use.

March 2. 2015

It was bound to happen.

I’m gleefully tossing old Xeroxes and I find a short story written by my insanely talented son when he was about 16. I remark, I read, I recognize its value is beyond description because not only is it well written, it marks a moment in his growing up that is important to me. Then I set it down and went back to my tossing.

I woke up in the middle of the night, about 3:00 a.m., and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where I’d put his story. I figured I probably E-mailed it to someone, he probably E-mailed it to me, but in that one crazy moment, I panicked that the only paper copy of his story was I-don’t-know-where. So I took off for the recycling bin in the hall of our building to retrieve my two bags of yesterday’s decluttered paper – just in case.

Then I went back to bed and searched my phone for a copy which I then E-mailed to my son for safekeeping. Phew!

I’ll go through the two bags one more time. The mantra of any professional organizer is this: “You can always throw it away tomorrow.”

Tonight, I went back to my dismantling and filled another shopping bag full of ratty, old Xeroxes of the sheet music I used to sing. And I found some wonderful autographs. For a very short time in my life, I thought I wanted to be an autograph hound, but it really didn’t suit me and I never knew why I had bothered people.

I also found a 1978 subway map – by Michael Cascagno – and it’s a treasure.

More tomorrow!

March 1. 2015

Just tossed a big bag of Vogue Knitting magazines from the 1980s! I’ve knitted since then, but I never got so good at it that I could follow anything past “Beginner” patterns. And the magazines only had one “Beginner” per issue. I loved looking at the intricate patterns and the beautiful yarns, the stories of remote places to buy supplies – all that. But the idea that I could suddenly become knitter enough to manage any of those patterns is humorous at best.

My music library is coming apart now too. I finally, after almost five years, have started in on pulling out all the duplicates and Xeroxes to leave just the real sheet music. Once that’s done, I’m going to see who could use all the beautiful songs I just don’t sing anymore. German lied, French chansons, Italian songs – such fabulous stuff, but I’m done. Maybe we can call it “retired?”

I don’t want to face finality if I give something away or throw something away. I want to see it, remember it, acknowledge it, and then let it go. It’s out of my house but not out of my life. This music library was something that held me together for a very long time. So I’m keeping my reviews. They’re pretty interesting reading after all these years.

February 28. 2015

When we moved into our current apartment, the place we call our house, I decided to splurge a bit and install six professionally designed closets. Our closets were all really large, but they were built in 1941 when I suppose people just hung clothes in them. We, on the other hand, put luggage and bags and shoes and boots and hiking gear and costumes, …

Well, you get the picture.

I emptied the shelves and started to toss and organize all the files of paper and sheet music I had stashed in my closet. I have a set of shelves that line the right hand side of my closet and I guess when I moved, I ran out of logical places to put things and I put them in the next best place – a completely illogical one, my clothes closet. And while I don’t just hang clothes in there, it would be nice to have the space to do that.

I tosses old Xeroxes, sorted all of my Christmas music – well, I think it’s all of my Christmas music – and I realized one really cool thing. When you stop yourself from having nice things because you already have things, it’s occasionally pleasant to realize once you’ve unloaded the old, tacky stuff, that you can now purchase replacement things that are nice. Long way around saying just this: I gave away, finally, all the ratty sheets I have been using, I gave away all the old pillows I was using, and even some I wasn’t using – so now, I feel terrific because I could go to Target and pick up new sheets.

The old sheets were functional, blah, and well, old. But now that they are gone, I can have nice sheets. So the decluttering isn’t only about having less but about having what you want. And that’s splendid.

February 27. 2015

I’ve found I am acquiring new habits based on a serious desire not to acquire clutter. I throw out paper on my desk now if I cannot see a need to keep it. And if I see a need to keep it, I keep it OFF my desk. This is good.

In my house, I find myself looking around to see where I’ve missed something and I swear, by the time I am done, this place is going to look like a house staged for a quick sale! I’ve been thinking about that recently and just today got a half-serious offer to buy my apartment. The very idea of moving again is much less daunting with much less stuff.

Today’s bag – bags. I’ve hauled out all the souvenir shopping bags and given a half dozen of them the old heave ho, along with two backpacks because I don’t need five backpacks, I only need three. Oh I know, who needs three backpacks? If you travel as much as I do, in the fashion in which I like to travel, you do need more than one. I have my long distance, ultra-lightweight one, the day tripping one, and a nice blue Ralph Lauren one I have posted to sell on Tradesy. If it doesn’t sell by Easter, it goes into the bin in the laundry room.

And two sleeping bags – because I really do need one but somebody might need the other two.

So far, I have unloaded books, gear, clothes, sheets and towels, and bags. And I have gained breathing room and space. Today, I salute the death of Leonard Nimoy – space really is the final frontier.

February 26. 2015

I cleared more stuff out of the paper stash on my desk today. I found a drawer filled with random product samples that needs organization so that’s where I am going next. It makes no sense to keep a file drawer filled with random, when specific and particular works better. If I need something, I will be able to find it – once I’m finished.

But now, I wonder if I’m starting to protect my stuff. Am I resisting clearing out my music library at home because, what?

I could say it’s such a really big job to pull apart all that paper and toss what I will never use again that I need to wait for an open all-day sometime. Or I could say that I am waiting to figure out where I can donate all that music. But I am worried it’s more that I will be closing a chapter of my book that has been left casually open all these years.

I acquired reams of sheet music and scores over the two decades of my life that I spent as an opera and oratorio singer. I collected music everywhere I went. Schirmer scores at Patelson’s in New York and the Princeton University Bookstore, Ricordi scores in Florence and Milan, and on and on. I have rare copies of Respighi and Zandonai songs, and beautiful autographed scores I will never part with, including a copy of the opera Werther, signed by Alfredo Kraus.

And then there’s all those Xeroxes. Singers back in the day would copy everything twice- it was never practical to cart scores around, so I made two copies of all of my audition pieces. One for me, one for my pianist. And now? I hardly even need the score.

So, starting on Saturday – when I may not have all day, but will certainly have more daylight than I have after I come home from work – I will begin to dismantle my library. I look forward to catching up with my dear old friends.

February 25. 2015

It’s been a week now, so I want to take a moment to acknowledge my inspiration:

40 Bags in 40 Days Decluttering Challenge

Today I bought boxes to cart out my books and the stuff from my linen chest. And I found a way to declutter some of my bathroom things too.

When I travel, I love to collect the little hotel bottles of shampoo, lotion, and conditioner. But they tend to languish at the bottom of this plastic box and I am less likely, over time, to ever use them. On the one hand, I hesitate to leave them in the hotel bathroom, but on the other, I tend not to use them.

I have a solution that I implemented today. Since I see lots of homeless and very poor people asking for handouts on the train, I want to do something – other than give out money, because I really can’t afford that. So I have started putting some of these little hotel lotions and shampoo and a granola bar in a Ziploc. That way, I feel like I can offer someone something without having it be money. I would imagine if I were in their situation and I had a dollar, I’d buy food. I would never buy shampoo.

Today, a woman on my train said she was homeless, and if anyone could give her a little something, she would be grateful – so I gave her one of my baggies. She stopped and looked right at me and said, “Oh my God, thank you so much.” And I knew I did something good.