The Backpack Press

March 16. 2015

I dropped off a half dozen bags of my son’s clothes into the bin in the laundry room. That was such a genius stroke to put a bin right there so you can wash up the clothes and then drop away. In the past, we’ve bagged up used clothes and they’ve sat in a corner til we could get the time to get a cab and drop things off at the Goodwill. He sorted and organized and I tossed.

I miss the church drops we made at Riverside Church. When I was singing there in the 80s, we could just pull up in the car and dash in to drop at their bin. And there was a church in Washington Heights near our apartment there – we’d hit and run! Since the office was rarely open when we were in the neighborhood, we’d bag everything up and leave it by their door. And then run. We never found out if they wanted our donations but they did have a nice rummage sale where folks could buy used clothes for a few quarters, so we figured our stuff went there.

Today, I was able to take a basket full of books and place it – finally – into the wall unit in the living room where I keep books. It’s not like a bookcase in that it doesn’t have running shelf space – it’s got square spaces and they are deep enough to have books face in both direction with the spines showing out one side and the other because it’s open on both sides. I put some shoes away and I’m going to wash the balance of my son’s clothes and leave them hanging in his closet. He doesn’t live with us right now, but I like to think he should have enough stuff that when he comes home for a few days like he did this weekend, he feels at home and not in the way.

I’m loving the new organization at my desk at work too. I got a handful of mailers in the mail and I left them out to file tomorrow – instead of just sticking them into this big folder I used to have.

First thing Saturday, the rest of the books goes to the library. Then – Ancestry!

March 15. 2015

I suppose editing is like de-cluttering, right?

My next book is just about ready for daylight and I spent the better part of this day clearing out the word clutter, looking for typos, and making better sense of the sequence. I write short stories, not unlike these posts about my Lent challenge, so, getting the flow right is key to making the book something people want to keep reading. Read, hopefully yes. But keep reading? That’s my goal.

I also let go of a long sleeved black T-shirt that never fit right and a beautiful black and gray wool sweater that I just can’t wear anymore. I’ve had it, I’m done, somebody else gets to take a turn. That’s how I’m looking at this. I use my things, I let them go, and someone else takes over their care and their use.

The ancestry project may need to wait until the weekend when I can put more effort into sorting out all that paper, all those photos.

March 13. 2015

I bought the boxes today to pack up the rest of the sheet music and scores I will post to my friends tomorrow. It’s funny though – as much as I want this part of the project completed, I have this terrible feeling I’ve given away something I will miss. Just today, I was looking for something on my desk and gave up, thinking I had tossed it. Then I found it on another desk and realized how silly this is – worrying about bits and things that at some moment were so useless and worthless that I tossed them.

I couldn’t toss my music though. These pieces were part of another life – one where I actually, deliberately collected things. I wanted all four volumes of this or all three sets of that, all the editions of something else. But any professional singer will tell you that when you are cast in something, the music director tells you which edition, which version, which set to use and all that collecting becomes an expensive exercise.

Still. It’s weird looking at the bookcase that housed these things, now that they are no longer sitting there together, collecting dust. And I gave a granola bar to a homeless man who was sleeping on the street this morning.

Sometimes the things you give away stay with you.

March 12. 2015

I had an existential crisis solved by plastic today.

Remember all the plastic containers I hauled out of my kitchen? It balanced my kitchen. The right side is now even-Steven with the left where before, it listed and dipped precipitously from the weight of all that stupid plastic.

Well, yesterday I went to get lunch take-out at this great hamburger place with a nice bar and they packed it up for me in one of those giant plastic containers – the kind that threaten the planet because they are never going to degrade. When I was done with my burger – it was epic, by the way – I realized I had to let go of the container or clean it and put it in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet at work. I’m just not all that good at throwing things into the trash that either serve some reasonable use or threaten the future of the planet, so I cleaned it and into the drawer it went.

But here’s the thing. When I brought in my salad from home today to have lunch at my desk, I used the giant plastic container and my salad just fit – it was perfect. I could have decluttered and let the thing go yesterday, but today it served a purpose.

And so this is my existential crisis: how do I know what I throw away today wouldn’t have become useful tomorrow? I guess I’m going to have to wing it and stop being afraid. I tell everyone else to shun fear and here I am, fearful I could need a plastic container tomorrow.

I hold a slim hope that I can resolve this without hanging onto plastic containers.

March 11. 2015

I hauled two more bags of Dumb Xeroxes out this morning. The direct benefit is that I have reduced roughly 18 linear feet of occupied shelf space to something like 8 or 10. Now, I can take some of the plastic boxes that store things and – after I’ve gone through them, looking for more clutter! – get them up off the floor in my living room and onto the shelves in my bookcase that used to house music I had not looked at in many years.

Another interesting benefit is how I’ve started looking at my daily expenses. I find myself looking for ways NOT to spend money. It’s not that I could seriously call myself a spendthrift but I can say I could buy milk tomorrow and have no idea how much milk costs. I just hand the cashier a five and take away the change – never looking to see if milk’s gone up or down in price. I remember a television thing years ago when the price of milk was the way to trip up a local politician. If they couldn’t tell you the price of milk in their district, how the hell could they represent the people who couldn’t afford to buy milk? That spoke to me.

Clutter is way, way down. I’m cleaning more, I’m spending less, I’ve got space to breathe, and man, I want to travel. I am looking forward to spending some time back in Spain in May. And I am so glad I took up this Lent challenge.

March 10. 2015

I boxed up books to send to my friends – a good bit of my music library is about to become the property of other people. And I am so happy – not to let go of old friends, but to be able to share my old friends with, my friends. I have someone picking me up in the morning to help get the boxes along their way to UPS and then to Texas and Arkansas. And I will have two – at least two – more boxes to ship over the weekend. It’s all good.

I lost a good friend today – Open Salon, where I first learned to blog. It is closing up shop and leaving me and my wonderful imaginary friends to fend for ourselves like grown-ups for the first time. We all knew the end was coming but losing this little outpost hit me harder than I thought it would. I had hot dogs for dinner, hot dogs with sauerkraut, and then I came home and just laid down on the kitchen floor. I told some friends on Facebook that I feel like we’re like the folks tossed off the Titanic as it sank, scrambling to find friends and family in the water.

This wouldn’t have hit so hard had it not been that I just went through this kind of imaginary loss in July when my beloved Red Room closed. At the end of the day, and right now, it really is at the end of the day, I have made so many more friends than I have lost that I count both experiences in my plus column.

RIP Open Salon – you were great while you lasted.

And look at me! I’m over half the way to Easter and still letting go of my clutter and random stuff. Yea!

March 9. 2015

I packed up two boxes of books today. Two boxes of sheet music, scores, oratorios, songs – they are going out of here and into the hands of someone who will use them. This is tremendously satisfying.

I thought it would be more wrenching to take apart my music this way – but in fact, it’s been great! I can let go of all the things I can’t use and keep the pieces that mean something to me. I’ll keep the Barber songs and the anthologies I used as a very young singer. I’ll keep Strauss because I just adore Strauss, but the Poulenc I wanted to like more than I did – it goes. And all the Verismo songs I wanted to be able to use and never did. I suppose I was more of a Poulenc singer than a Verismo singer – it’s funny the things you want to be when you should just be glad to be what you are.

I am a lyric, not a spinto.

There is one song that I found that the great soprano Leontine Price gave me a long time ago. That stays. And the Strauss song that was played at my friend’s funeral after he died of AIDS. That stays too. I’m keeping the Lorca songs, and letting Pizzetti go – like choosing oranges over bananas.

I may, in the end, give more of my pieces away, but for the moment, I have made space. Space is amazing.

March 8. 2015

I’ve gotten to the end of the Dumb Xerox exercise, leaving me to sort through the balance of my music library. I own 49 opera scores, so a lot of them are going to go. I have come to a point where I can let go of the things that have only peripheral meaning to me. Such beautiful music needs to come off the page again, so out they go. I’m only keeping the operas I have sung and the scores with the beautiful autographs.

It’s been interesting getting used to the new organization in the kitchen and I am so looking forward to getting the books out of my dining room where they’ve been piling up, waiting for a ride to the library. It’s all good.

Next up – once the rest of my music library is sorted out, will be the rest of the children’s books that are stored in my closet. I want to be able to put my suitcase up on the shelf instead of on the floor. That will be something!

After that, I’m going through my Ancestry Dot Com paperwork. I know I have lots of Dumb Xeroxes there too – I’m seeing a thread here. For some reason, where I have one copy of something, I have many copies of the same something. My playbills – just for an example – why did I think I needed 6 of them? I sang one performance, but I kept a handful of programs. Maybe I thought I would mail them to somebody who missed the concert? I don’t know.

I can’t wait to be done now. As wonderful as this challenge has been, and as much as I have learned, I really look forward to spending more time doing something other than cleaning out the clutter!

March 7. 2015

Photo One – The BEFORE shot.

The operative is “Less is more.” So, rather than write about the bag today, I thought I’d just show the before, after, and after the after shots.

This is one of my kitchen cabinets. We collect way too many plastic containers, wouldn’t you agree?

Photo Two – The AFTER shot.

Cutting boards on the left, square shapes next, then round. Lids with bottoms – it’s the new world of plastic!

And this is the very bag that goes out the very door later this afternoon!

Photo Three – The AFTER the AFTER shot.

Boo-yah!