Let What Go?

What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

This is an interesting, and at this point in my life, baffling prompt.

Over the last four years I have steadily and progressively been stripping down the things that surrounded me. In 2018, I lived in a three story brick Victorian house, with a basement that was also full of stuff. When my wife died late that year, I began a systematic reduction of everything—maybe I should write a how-to book like Marie Kondo.

First, I donated her clothes so that others could get some use out of them. Then I started on the sewing room, selling off three sewing machines, and hundreds of pieces of fabric and hundreds of patterns. (I’d say a thousand, though that might be a bit of an exaggeration; but the number for each was closer to 1000 than 100.) Then there were cutting tables and all the associated tools of sewing, knitting, and crocheting. Somewhere in there I became a one-car person as well, along with being a top eBay seller and an expert at Facebook Marketplace, Craisgslist, and Trash Nothing.

When I decided to sell the house and move, I began getting rid of furniture: some recent pieces and some antiques picked up along the way. I had also taken up leather work but, never really getting anywhere with it, sold that as well. And I reduced, and reduced, and reduced—books, my clothing I no longer wore, and various knick knacks.

Some of what I owned came here with me; much is still in my storage unit. While you might say I take no Kondo-like joy in the stuff in storage since it’s not in my daily life, it’s also stuff I am loathe to part with.

Oh, yes, and somewhere in there I retired and cleaned out my office. Some books sold and donated,but my theatre books came with me. I did also trash my production materials; I doubt anyone really wants to look at my notes and see exactly how I blocked Medea. So—even less.

So I’m pretty stripped down. Stuff for an office that will see me getting the new theatre company started, the film and video equipment for a small studio is still intact, the hard drives of files stored for future examination—that’s all here with me. Some things I won’t let go of.

Now if the prompt isn’t talking about things…I guess I’m more baffled.

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