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accomplishment
November 2009 
What would you like to have done by your next birthday?
Posted on Mar 23rd, 2008
by 
synonym for light
synonym for light
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for March 23, 2008:
my birthday is in a little less than 3 weeks. whoa! a nice gift to give myself.....? freedom from clutter. freedom from extra pounds so my old favorite clothes will fit. a lighter body so it'll be easier to make my bicycle go when the bike path is ridable again. the less stuff I have and the lighter my physical body, the more fun it will be to dance through my next year of life.
i crashed my external hard drive a few weeks ago -- the one with all my photographs from my first digital camera in 2003 til now + a lot of scanned stuff + a great deal of music. I'm practicing non attachment about it. I know the data can be recovered, but the process will probably cost about $2000. I am close to having that much money, but that would mean putting the data recovery as a higher priority than the tipi and taking take jordan with me to norway-- a trip I have been looking forward to for a few years now. so-- non attachment and patience. dropping my hard drive while it was running-- now why did my subconscious or my higher consciousness allow me to do that? maybe I have been too attached to those things. maybe it is time to learn a lesson about freedom and lightness. :-)
I took everything out of the bedroom and bathroom and now I am putting back in only the things that are truly life enhancing. what a project, but it feels good!! I am being ruthless in the culling away of things. I am giving away everything that is not absolutely necessary or absolutely magical. now-- my definition of magical may be broader than some, but still, I've gotten rid of a lot. the living room photo was taken this morning and now we can actually sit on the couch again. :-)
i crashed my external hard drive a few weeks ago -- the one with all my photographs from my first digital camera in 2003 til now + a lot of scanned stuff + a great deal of music. I'm practicing non attachment about it. I know the data can be recovered, but the process will probably cost about $2000. I am close to having that much money, but that would mean putting the data recovery as a higher priority than the tipi and taking take jordan with me to norway-- a trip I have been looking forward to for a few years now. so-- non attachment and patience. dropping my hard drive while it was running-- now why did my subconscious or my higher consciousness allow me to do that? maybe I have been too attached to those things. maybe it is time to learn a lesson about freedom and lightness. :-)
I took everything out of the bedroom and bathroom and now I am putting back in only the things that are truly life enhancing. what a project, but it feels good!! I am being ruthless in the culling away of things. I am giving away everything that is not absolutely necessary or absolutely magical. now-- my definition of magical may be broader than some, but still, I've gotten rid of a lot. the living room photo was taken this morning and now we can actually sit on the couch again. :-)
paradise by the bathroom mirror light
v.i.p. and second hand magic bed frame
my project- lightening the load
Access: Public
I do this kind of thing periodically but somehow the mysterious objects always start creeping back in…
One of my practices now is that whenever something leaves my hand I try to ask myself if it's in the place it belongs to. And I try not to bring more things into our house, but sometimes the things just hitch a ride with me and before I know it, I'm surrounded again!
yes. this happens to me too.
before jordan was born I had a policy of trying to own only as many things as I would carry with me in a backpack. boy are those days ever gone– now I'm trying to have only as many things as will fit in a mobile home?! in that light it seems that I haven't been actually very ruthless in my culling. ahhhhhhh. sigh.
I'm going to look again and see what more I can remove from the household– tomorrow.
and– those things that hitch a ride– it's ok to keep them right, just have to find some other object to let go of? letting go– it's bittersweet sometimes– even with objects, istn' it?
I'll practice letting go again some more tomorrow.
I guess it's just a question of what/who we choose to be surrounded by?
Yes, it is a question of what we choose, I know - but I have this odd affection for objects, not like shopping-at-the-mall consumerism, but odd broken things and strange useless things and bits and pieces that seem to have fallen out of some poem I can't remember and I end up with weird collections of stuff around me and then I look at it and wonder why I have this stuff…
The body weight thing really resonates for me too - I'm obsessed with how we don't notice the stuff we carry around all the time on our bodies and how draining it is. I mean, even ten pounds - okay, pick up a ten pound bag of potatoes and carry them everywhere with you for a day - ten pounds is a lot of extra work. But I also love food and love to cook and it's a little bit of a balancing act. Working on it.
Sorry to hear about your hard drive. I wrote about this in my blog Data-Death and Impermanence.
I am also fighting a clutter war and losing. My husband is the real stuff-a-holic. I finally had to just clear clutter from the bedroom and bathroom then put on blinders when I walk through “his” part of the house. I keep trying to think about my house being a boat that can only carry so much, so whenever I bring something new in, I have to take something out or the boat will sink.
my beautiful friend aurora! radiant as always
I've been very minimalist these last 5 or 6 years, paring down to the clothes in my closet, an air bed, computer, and a few odds and ends. I can literally move everything I own in the trunk and back seat of a car. I'm sure it's 'better' than the unbridled acquisition of stuff, but sometimes I wish I had a few more things. Gentle things, non-invasive things, but things anyhow. Although I don't miss the 40 lbs I shed several years ago, not one bit.
I'm moving in June. It is like sticking my fingers down the throat of this house and purging all that unnecessary.
Feeling lighter already.
I've noticed that the amount of stuff rises exponentially with the amount of time I spend living in the same place.
I used to be able to live out of a trunk,that changed after i got married and settled down.
I own stuff now,it is going to be a real move,with a truck,not the subway moves of yore.
40 lbs apparently that's what i should lose,yet i like the plumpness,although I miss my guy jeans,I'm hipless and buttless when I'm slim
I went through the decluttering process about three years ago - so freeing! And, it's staggering how much stuff we accumulate, and even more so, how much stuff we can actually live without. When it was time to refurnish, we didn't buy coffee tables or end-tables or rugs. Just the bare minimum. When we go to other people's house with the traditional lay-out, we feel claustrophobic.
jeannie– I know the kind of stuff you're talking about. right here, next to my computer there is a headless, footless jester doll that we found in the snow on a photo/lunch walk one day and the hot pink satiny material that my headphones came wrapped in. they look good together. I can't part with them yet. if I was living out of a backpack I would not keep them, would I?
jw– thank you for the commiseration. I needed that. :-)
albert– shall I send you some of my gentle non-invasive things? a bit of hot pink satiny material perhaps? :-) I envy your light load, house and person wise.
b.b. I don't quite have house bulimia yet, but I'm hoping to develop that condition.
but never body bulimina– no not that. yuck! :-) I just want to lose 15 lbs or so in the next two months. my plan– small portions of real food– nothing processed. lots of water, water, water. a half hour to an hour of walking daily. faster walking than my photo dawdling maybe. more tantric sex (thank you tanticksta for the suggestion) with my husband of course. and some yoga and meditation.
and I lightened another load today– I told the yoga studio I will not teach anymore at least until fall. I'll be happy to pay for my monthly unlimited yoga membership instead. this is a huge weight off my shoulders and makes me feel like doing yoga again. it was feeling like such an obligation and now it feels like a treat again. ah, I love spring– it's the time of lightening up for me in so many ways. :-)
and bb– I haven't worn boy jeans since I was 12. even if I weigh an unhealthy bones sticking out 120 I'd still have hips and a butt. :-)
otter– I'm thinking less end tables, more bookshelves.
I did leave the library with only a list of books I'd like to see about when I bring my current 4 books back, instead of bringing 10 books home this week. yes– an exercise in self discipline. :-D
What are your around birthday plans? I am waiting for a little more warmth to clean out the winter from my little caravan. I need to pull it all outside and outside needs to be dry It's pulling on me more every day. You are inspiration. I was thinking of the things I don't have, find unnnecessary (dish washer, toilet, shower, other room, sounds system, tv, etc) and then things I need like little troll dolls in a bird nest owl skulls old instruments bear skins books books blue heron bones… maps from everywhere russian ermines on a string coyote fangs colored pencils rocks from everywhere steiff monkeys in a wooden boat snake skins tools tents tapestries..Maybe I need them to hold me down:-)
maybe you do need them to hold you down. :-) I found a box of rocks that we brought back from iceland on the top shelf of the closet. I took them out of the box and put them in the base of the potted plant near the door. they will be happier there instead of hiding in a box in the closet. why did I put them in there in the first place??? I can't remember.
mark jordan posted this blog of rumi talking about delight in objects and etc. it really spoke to me about this subject of which objects we choose to be surrounded by.
oh yeah – no birthday plans yet. maybe go for a hike. or a bike ride. or to the hot springs. or dinner here or…. michelle's birthday is the next day after mine and she wants to get together. I want to be outside and I have the day off and so does adam. I think it's a friday or is it saturday? well hmm. something outside I think. will you be around? or in moab area?
Farland, if you want to be a bird you're going to have to give up on the things that hold you down…
I mean, unless you're going to become a penguin or maybe an emu or something.
Dawn, what's the date of your bd?
Hey what about a raven with a nest full of sparkly things!
I'll be back and forth. Maybe you should do a birthday road trip to Moab?
april 11
& yours
I don't know about road trips to moab right now. I'll make a last minute spontaneous decision. I can't, at this moment, bear to think about being in a car for long. but maybe when it's closer I'll feel like it.