The Backpack Press

March 29. 2015

I’ve convinced myself that a plan to unload something is as good as the actual unloading. I have decided to part with four chairs in my dining room and it’s like I am unloading a huge weight off my shoulders. These four random, mismatched chairs have taken the place of matching chairs. They have served me for a long while, but keeping them has stopped me from having nice chairs. They will go and if it weren’t for the 40 Bag Challenge, I might never have come to this decision.

This Lent, I have taught writing classes. I have cleaned out my medicine chest in the big bathroom, the plastic container collection in the kitchen, my library, my music, my closet, my drawers, my papers, my clothes, my linens, my finances, my desk at work, and my computer files. I have given away hotel shampoos and lotions to the homeless who beg on my trains, my music to my friends, my clothes to an AIDS charity, my books to the library. And I have learned so much I never thought would be part of this exercise.

I’ve always prided myself in the knowledge that I do know what is important. It’s people and places, rarely things. One of the reasons I write books is that I want to keep my stories without keeping all the clutter. I read today that millennials keep very little. They don’t want their parents’ stuff. If it’s not on their hard drive, their iPhone, or a piece of plastic, it’s not important. I am coming around to that realization myself, but there is tremendous comfort in things that cannot be gained by reading a screen. And it’s that very comfort that I do not want to lose in my desire to de-clutter my life.

In face, I prefer shopping for plane tickets to shopping for things. I have to need something to buy something – I don’t go to the mall to shop. And yet, as I was looking through my notes from art history classes or copies of newspapers I edited years ago, I smiled. I felt comforted by my things. I think that’s why people who survive terrible weather events or fires are photographed crying because they lost their things. It’s not the thing, it’s that feeling of comfort, the feeling of connection to an event that the photograph captured, the memories of the vacation where you bought the necklace, the ring, the bracelet, or the scarf.

So I did make amazing progress to a more de-cluttered life. I have space now to put my things away and I know, pretty much, where everything is. And that in itself is comforting. For possibly the very first time in my life, I have also felt a connection to the season of Lent. I knew when Palm Sunday was – that always sneaked up on me before. And I certainly know when Easter will be – I’m teaching that day. I’m helping some lovely people connect with their family stories in a way that allows them to be able to write about them.

But I have also confronted my real need to keep some things and let others go – as I need. The most interesting by-product was finding out how keeping much of my day-to-day stuff was stopping me from having nice happy things. I had useful things so I didn’t have the justification for nice things. If I had empty plastic containers from the Chinese take-out place, how could I justify buying Rubbermaid or Tupperware containers? I had hand-me-down sheets and towels and they didn’t match. They did the job, but they weren’t fun or wonderful. Now that I have been able to divest myself of these items – including the dining room chairs that will go next – I have the freedom to surround myself with nice things. I can have nice things – that’s what I learned. I don’t need MORE things or expensive things, but I deserve nice things.

I will be wrapping this up for the next week – more letting go, more sorting and organizing, more putting things away. This is my new normal.

March 28. 2015

Two cans of paint. Gone.

When I painted my new apartment almost five years ago, I saved the paint. I can’t tell now why I thought that was a good idea. I had already taken about a cup of each color and stashed it in small glass jars in case I needed a splotch to do a touch-up someplace. Why did I think I also needed nearly a gallon?

So, two colors left this afternoon while I was back and forth going downstairs to do my laundry. I love the paint I selected – even after living with them for so long. I think maybe I might like to repaint just for the fun of picking out new colors – it is only paint, after all – but I like these colors still so much I can’t convince myself to change. Most times, change is good, but not here.

I am thinking of renovating the bathrooms – they are the original fixtures from 1941 when the building went up. It’s just about time for a change here. I’m thinking of squares and rectangles to stay with the Art Deco vibe, but I can promise you they won’t have anything to do with the maroon and salmon pink colors Ive got now. No siree, Bob!

I also tossed some more sheets into the bin in the laundry room, while I was there. I love the idea that my clean things could help someone.

Tomorrow’s the last day of this challenge. Just imagine that.

March 27. 2015

Goodbye magazines!

I have subscriptions to many magazines – and I never have the time to read them. They pile up – neatly – and I keep thinking somehow tomorrow will be remarkably dissimilar to today and I will suddenly have all the free time in the world and I’ll read magazines.

And sales catalogs – Lands End, LL Bean, Jockey, Country Curtains. I once had a thing where I would get the flier or catalog out of the mailbox and assess right then and there – what were the odds I’d ever buy anything from it? If the answer were really low, meaning the simple answer to that question was no, out it would go. It lasted only a few days and then I didn’t have the assessment time and they piled up again.

Now, by pile I mean there’s a stack only about a foot high. So, tonight, I bagged it all up, looked wistfully at the stuff I will not be buying and the places in the travel magazines I will not be visiting, and out it goes. And in the process, I freed up a shelf. Where I left my IKEA catalog without which I choose not to be.

I had been piling them up on the floor until I emptied out my library and created an empty shelf which promptly became the resting place for the pile.

Dumb. Out damned pile!

March 26. 2015

Today, just a tiny bag. Stuff I took out of a hot dog bun-shaped wicker basket I bought to house the remote. Instead of the remote, which was on the couch, it carried a random assortment of stuff like the cards you pick up at Starbucks, thinking you will download the app or the single off the new album, but you don’t. They expire too, I think.

But you know, I realized sometimes it’s about the stuff you don’t toss that is the meaningful contribution that day. I decided to keep all the children’s books. They remind me of the nights I read my babies to sleep and the delight on their faces when we bought them or had them signed by the authors. They stay. With apologies to the library, of course.

The theme is constant now. I am letting go of the shimmer and keeping the substance. The reflections and the fog are gone now and I have the things that matter to me. I’m not yet done but the difference, now that I have unloaded bags and bags of clothing, bedding, kitchen things, bathroom things, is just this: I have more of what matters and so much less of what doesn’t.

I am still handing out my little Baggies filled with the give-away shampoos and lotions and soaps from hotels. That collection is nearly gone. Tuesday, I handed one to a man begging on the uptown A train and a man standing near me asked what I had given him. He was someone who had worked with the homeless and I think he really liked the idea of giving out the spare soaps. It has made me want to keep collecting them after hotel stays – just so I can have something to contribute, since giving out any kind of real cash on the subway is not something I can do.

March 25. 2015

Sometimes you can let go of things and miss them, sometimes you can’t even remember why you needed to hold onto them for so long. And then there’s the shredder.

I guess I am waiting for somebody else to cart it downstairs – it’s kinda heavy, after all. And then there’s the issue of it not really being mine. It was a thing my daughter won years ago – and it served its little purpose, I guess. I know now it is better not to need a shredder than to have one.

I’m going to go through my art history notes tonight before I go to bed. In there is the abandoned hope of my ever finishing my Ph.D. in art history. But I’m cool with that now. I can’t imagine how my life could go better with a Ph.D. now. It would have been nice when I was in my 20s, but now? A nice achievement but not a step toward a better career.

I have the career so many people want. I am a writer. I write books.