This Halloween, instead of preparing for the tricks, treats and haunted houses, my family will be moving north to a different part of town to be closer to our kids’ school, the local light rail system and a quicker route to my work.  And although I am looking forward to the change, moving four people and all our stuff is not fun at all. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have already read my short bursts of fits, tirades and complaints about all the junk we have. Every day has been a new discovery of more crap in a closet – mostly stuff we were at one time going to sell in a yard sale, give away or (laugh real hard) fix. 

 

But what has irritated me the most about moving is that before I started cleaning up and packing, I sincerely thought I was a minimalist. I gave soap-box lectures to my kids about neither being materialistic nor spending more than a person makes. My supposed motto was about never buying anything extra or unneeded. I even refused Costco membership on the fact that we would waste food that we could never eat before it spoiled. My kids endured my semi hippie-chick tirades about loving mother earth and just taking the bare minimum of what a person needs. I felt glorious.

 

Then I opened the back hall closet and the storage area outside. Oh. My. Goodness.  Really? Where did all this junk come from? There were old clothes, old toys and about a hundred and one remote controls that at one time controlled helicopters, flying saucers, airplanes, cars, old TVs and VCR’s. There were extra blankets I always forgot I had so I kept buying more for the extremely cold and wet winters around here. There were slippers. Gardening tools. Snow suits that evoked more memories than the actual use they gave us. Tennis rackets with pinged-strings. Limestone. The list went on and on and I realized then that I was not a minimalist but was actually maxed out on junk. The infiltration of said junk in to our lives was quite subtle and layered throughout birthdays, holidays and the change of seasons.  It was truly mortifying to know that not only did I contribute to waste and lots of it, but now as punishment, I was going to have to go through it all and pitch it, donate it, recycle it, trash it or shred it. 

 

Let the sifting begin. For the past fifteen days, I have tackled the closets and storage areas, the bedrooms, bathrooms, the under sink cabinets, the kitchen, dining room and last but not least the family room. Shudder. My weapons of choice were extra sturdy lawn and leaf plastic bags and the telephone number of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Yesterday, I took all my papers that needed shredding to UPS because they’ll do it for .45 cents a pound. I won’t tell you how many pounds I had but let’s just say that I had all my bank statements clear back to 2002. Ugh. I found seven disposable cameras (pre-digital era or PDE) that I took to Rite Aid for developing. The camera guy announced that he hadn’t seen those types of disposable cameras in quite some time.   Now I’m curious as to what photos are on the cameras – perhaps glamour shots of a younger, more junk-free me? Sigh.

 

Tomorrow, I’m tackling the entertainment center. It’s quite apparent that I need to be entertained with all the DVDs, CDs, VHS cassettes, games and books that have been stuffed into the behemoth belly of that beast. No wonder I haven’t had an original thought in quite some time! I have obviously relied on Hollywood, Bollywood, and the entire Cure collection to fill my senses at all times. When was the last time I just sat quietly with a quiet mind? 

 

I used to travel around the world by myself, you know. Me, my backpack, a guide book and hope that I would find enough work along the way to keep me in enough money to continue on. I have paddled a canoe through Hidden Valley in the Philippines where all I heard were waterfalls and monkeys. I have silently trekked pathways on Mt. Fuji in Japan and admired the quiet beauty of the Orient. I have taken the night train from Paris to Brussels when everyone was sleeping for the three hours and I just had the clicks of the track to mark time. I have commandeered a donkey and a cart down an isolated village road in Tunisia to get another bottle of propane so I could heat water for the day after next’s shower. That used to be my entertainment. I didn’t need a bombardment of movies, music and the internet to keep me tuned in. I was tuned in with myself and my quiet place in the world. 

 

I don’t really know how I’ve become someone who must receive images all day instead of painting or writing my own. Maybe it’s a sign of settling in, raising kids in the digital age and thinking more about my PERS retirement fund that’s only twenty some years away. My hope is that this move will be a clean break with the junk – literally and figuratively. I have pared everyone down to true necessity and a few perks. I need to make sure that peace, quiet and a room of my own is a part of this next part of my life.   And if that means I have to give up my 8-track of Pieces of Eight by Styx and Jerry Maguire on VHS, so be it.