Journaling project, Day 27

When things aren’t adding up in your life, begin subtracting. Life gets a lot simpler when you clear the clutter that makes it complicated. Fill your life with lots of experiences, not lots of things. Have incredible stories to tell, not incredible clutter in your closets.

What forms of clutter have been complicating your life and diverting you from meaningful experiences? How can you simplify and clear some space for yourself today?

At last, a prompt I can generally get behind. I'm terrible about this. I have way too much stuff, too many things, too many half-completed, will-do-someday, not-sure-what-to-do-about projects. Things. I'm dually burdened by my ant-nature (https://fablesofaesop.com/the-ant-and-the-grasshopper.html) and by a desire not to waste. Throwing something away and then needing another costs, too. I also take my shoes to be repaired when worn, and have buttons replaced on shirts and pants rather than buying more.

I could, I think, balance the two, but it's a big mental effort to do so. The easier course is to save things, hold onto them. This is compounded by having lived in the same place for two decades. A lot accumulates in the times when you don't have to clear it out. Elder child is cleaning house in preparation for college and discovering just how much stuff is (was) squirreled away in that one room. Imagine that times all the rooms in the house.

(Except maybe the kitchen. I'd wager that 95% of what's in the kitchen are things that see actual use. I'm not sure why I'm different about that room than all the others.)

That said, I'm not sure my things prevent me from having meaningful experiences. My things don't prevent me from having people over - my biggest source of meaningful experiences. Nor do they hamper me from going out and seeing things, visiting people, doing things. I don't think that simplifying my physical clutter would affect my experiences. Would it?

I could see this as a mental exercise - simplifying my mental life has been an important process for the last couple years and it's been helpful in keeping me from feeling so hopeless and overwhelmed. Maybe the prompt speaks to people who use things as an escape or diversion from experiences. But I've always had trouble spending on myself. Like, this past weekend I felt good that I just picked up and bought a book I've been wanting for a while because it was 40% off in the shop. (David Byrne's "How Music Works")

One thing that I think would help me simplify is if I had good alternatives to "just throw it out". Like, if I'm unlikely to use a thing but someone else might then it's easier for me to pass it on/donate/give away. Just piling up trash is _much_ harder for me. Like, I have a bunch of old board games I'd donate or sell, if I could. I sold a few cartons of things back in the old days (anyone remember half.com?) but kind of ran out of steam and there are a couple cartons worth left that I should dispose of.

Partly it's setting aside time to organize, sort, catalog, list, call, donate, whatever. I hear there are people who help with that sort of thing...

How about a kind of update

Things have been happening. Here's a bullet list of some of them.

- We just got back from a weekend-plus trip to Western MA, with relatives. Thing 2 is at camp and Thing 1 chose to stay home which meant not needing to board the dog. We were joined by my dad and stepmom and uncle. It was more rainy and thus plan-cancelling than I would have liked, but we saw some things, ate some things, Ingressed some things.

We stayed at an AirBnB which meant having a house to ourselves, but several downsides, not least of which were stairs WAY too steep for old people and a mattress best described as a trampoline with noisy pretensions. My back and hips are not happy. The town of Lee, MA is very tourist-oriented which means it's hard to get reservations most any place, but almost every place has much-better-than-you'd-expect food and lots more gluten-free and vegetarian options than you'd expect and isn't actually all that pricey so that's good. Tanglewood is the big draw in the area and there are lots of businesses that give the tourists other things to do while waiting for the concert. We only got to one real cidery, wanted more, punted on formal museums (would've liked to do Mass MOCA), and didn't get any real "us" time. Choosing "time with relatives who may not be around all that much longer" over "us time" is a choice. I'm not regretting it, as all the relatives are having health challenges that you see in people of their ages and some of it is worrisome.

- I'm kind of binge-watching the Marvel TV series on Netflix. Been through Daredevil S1, Jessica Jones S1, partway into DD S2 (do NOT like their take on Elektra, sorry), and Luke Cage S1. Of the three I think Luke Cage is the best. They're all ultra-violent and somewhat uncomfortable. Jessica Jones in particular gets bonus points for real lesbian characters whose problems are not "she's a lesbian" and challenge points for full-frontal depictions of functional alcoholism and rape/sexual assault. Actually, there's a lot to say about that but it'd be spoilery as hell, so maybe another time.

All of the series are recorded in ways that frustrate me: the fight/violence scenes done VERY VERY LOUD and much of the dialog in close near-whispers. Thank ghu for closed captioning or I'd miss a lot of it.

- I continue to bounce around the edges of political action. I just bought myself a shirt from T'Ruah (http://www.truah.org/) for their fundraiser that says "Resisting tyranny since Pharoah" - which is just so up my alley. Got onto their list around attending a protest at the local ICE office to mark the end of Tisha B'av, which is itself a whole other post that I'm having a hella time writing.

I also went to an Elizabeth Warren "town hall" which was a combination of pep-talk, reality talk, storytelling(*), and campaign stump speech. No hints of presidential ambition; I signed up to canvas for her, but my weekends are a mess so it's not clear when or how much I'll get to do.

- Packing to get Thing 1 to college grinds forward at glacial pace, mostly due to Pygment sitting on... err, with, Thing 1 and Making Her Do The Goddamn Work. She seems completely incapable of managing this on her own and I'm convinced that if we didn't sit on her she'd go to college with the clothes on her back and that's it. I am trying to let this play itself out - I have all the worse- and worst-case scenarios and plans mapped out in my head.

On the plus side, the College sent her an "orientation" video that was stunningly positive. It was, essentially, a Code of Conduct for incoming frosh. Respect, dignity, diversity (including gender recognition), how to be an active bystander in combating sexual assault. Really, all the "lit" things we'd want new frosh to know and embody. Such a good idea, so sad we didn't have this in my day (because dear lord did 18-year-old me need this and need it badly). Of course any Code is only as good as the people who enact it so we'll see whether they do this but it's a very positive start and makes me worry less about Thing 1 interacting with official school functions like health and housing services as a trans person.

That's a list, I guess - what's up with you these days?

(*) it's her childhood story of her dad becoming disabled and her mom, at 50+ never having worked outside the home, having to go get a job and how a minimum-wage job then was enough for them to pay the mortgage, keep the utilities on, and put food on the table. You can trace a direct line from the elements of this story to the issues Warren is passionate about and it comes across as very authentic.