Living on a ship has given me a whole new appreciation of not collecting ‘stuff’. For most of my life I’ve kept nearly everything. These days though, I come home from a contract and recklessly tear apart my living space, throw out anything older than a year (that doesn’t have emotional significance, some things are still sacred, even to me!) dust everything, and stand back to admire a job well done. Last time it was my closet (and I have to do that again actually) this time it was a general thing. All in all, my mind and my living space feel a lot better for the blitz assault.
It’s also an emotional thing for me. There’s been a lot going on lately, and this time my cleaning blitz didn’t just mean something as simple as vacuuming out the dust bunnies from under my bed. It was electronic too, clearing out old phone numbers – now sadly unneeded – old email contacts, pruning my facebook friends list.
All in preparation for packing it all up into a hard sided suitcase, dufflebag and carry on, and getting on a plane in under two weeks…
In the course of doing all this I came across two things: one, a locked chest which I opened only to add a few things to it before locking it and putting it back in its place. I don’t go into that chest often. Second: a flat tin box, just over standard letter size in size, which I opened to reveal the original spiral bound notebooks of the first series of ‘novels’ I wrote. I didn’t read them, just put them back in their box and put it back in its place. It’s been a long journey to get from the words in that box to the book for sale on my website, and they’re very different…
Life takes so many unexpected turns
And sometimes you need to clear out the cobwebs…