Precious things

David sent me a whale tooth for my birthday!  All the way from Scotland. It could be a hundred years old!

I think it was the spring of 2014 when I got my hands on Marie Kondo's book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, like so many other people.  It came at a good time for me.

I had some time off from work because of a hand surgery, and used it to purge my house, at least some of it.  I gave away bags and bags of clothes and books.  I am far from a hoarder, but I still had a lot to get rid of.

There are tons of resources on line about methods and strategies to begin sorting, donating, selling excess items you might have around the house.    Along with the above mentioned book, I will say that I got some inspiration from a youtube channel called Love Raw Vegan, by Brianna Egglestone, and by The Minimalists Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus (I just listened to one of their podcasts though.  They spent at least ten minutes talking about the products you can buy to get better sleep.  I think if you're making a podcast on minimalism you might run out of things to say.) I have read that one out of ten Americans rents self storage for these things, and that the number of these units is more than five times the number of Starbucks in the United States! 

Why to get rid of your stuff?  I won't try to convince you of the zen-like spiritual benefits of less clutter. I have my own practical reasons.  I'm getting on a sailboat.  Enough said.

If you take a real look at the amount of time you spend taking care of, cleaning, organizing, buying and laundering, your things, you might be very surprised, like I was.  Not to mention the cost of accumulating things we don't need.  Is that what a successful life looks like?  Accumulating and then taking care of things?  Not for me. But still, I have fallen into the web of consumerism that is all around us, and have amassed too much.

If (when) I have to come back to the states and work, I will need such things as a bed, winter clothes, pots and pans.  So walking the fine line of modern minimalism is a challenge.  I don't want to rent a storage facility!  So, the next few weeks will be time to devoted to a systematic purging of things.  I will be ruthless!

​As I sit in my bedroom, the winter sun streaming through the window, my dogs laying next to me on the floor warmed by the sun, I know there are things I will miss dearly.  Fortunately I don't have to give up everything.  I'm sure I'll treasure the whale tooth David gave me forever.

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