When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

I think that if you own a house and are seriously considering re-locating, the only answer is to simply burn the place down. Do it quick like a band-aid, and just set your belongings ablaze and start over fresh, a clean slate, without all the junk you’ve inevitably been holding on to for much longer than you should have. Truth is I’ve been doing what I do when I don’t want to deal with something that I know I can’t avoid - pretending like it isn’t happening. Moving in four days and nothing is packed? No big deal! I’ve got plenty of time! After all, this apartment isn’t that big! How much stuff can I really have accumulated over just three and a half years? Don’t answer that question. Well you can’t answer that question because you’re not here. And be thankful for it, because I am here in the middle of all the mayhem where there’s piles of stuff I didn’t even know I had surrounding me at ever turn. I’m wishing I were in a million other places, like say, a week from now when this move will finally be over and I won’t have to worry about it anymore. Tonight with a glass of wine in hand and Brubeck on the record player, I began to tackle all the tangible things of my life - and I have to admit, it left me a little confused. Umm, what possessed me to buy a vegetable steamer? Have I ever even used it? Do I even know how? And all those spices. Cumin. Cloves. Cream of tartar? What is that? Five different coffee travel mugs are in the cabinet and I always buy my coffee at the cart in front of my office for $1.10. So...that’s weird. And exactly how many pairs of black flats do I really need? Had they been giving them away somewhere? Same thing with black turtleneck sweaters. And black blazers. And black pants? What’s more worrying than the fact that I am, actually, moving into an even smaller place than I’m in now which will make the logistics of fitting much of anything, (let alone things I don’t need or haven’t used in over a year), one of the most difficult tasks of all time - is that I’ve got all these things and I don’t know why. I know we’re a consumer-driven world and over time we buy things (three containers of baking powder?) and are given things (just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I automatically need journals. I currently have six and I suppose I’ll get around to filling them all when I reach retirement), and there’s that feeling of not wanting to waste things or throw them away - but do we really need to hold onto them? Is our inability to let go making our lives better or worse? I started to worry that perhaps these objects were simply filling some unknown void I didn't want to recognize, each piece somehow helping to justify my existence. We store these items in boxes and put them in cabinets and tell ourselves that one day we’ll need them (just you wait!) and then promptly forget we have them and go out and buy the exact same thing again and again until we have not one but two containers of cream of tartar (still don’t know what it’s for?) and watch as the things we don’t need start to close in and suffocate us. After four hours of tackling just part of the kitchen and hall closet, I thought seriously about taking a tip from the venerable Mr. Thoreau and fleeing to the woods to live deliberately. I could manage a small cabin (roughly the size of my new studio) and not have bother about packing up all this stuff I don’t want or need, come to mention it. But it was just a fleeting thought of course. Aside from forests in the Manhattan area being thin on the ground, I hate bugs, and figure life just really wouldn’t be the same without things like my french press, all my back issues of the New Yorker, and that baking powder I need once a year when I finally get around to making that pie. I suppose when you have to look at all the useless things you own in harsh light of having to pack them up and take them with you someplace else, one can’t help but feel a bit ashamed and ridiculous. So you do what I did, solemnly swear to yourself standing before your humming refrigerator that you’ll never obtain, purchase, receive, accept or acquire another useless piece of anything for the rest of your Manhattan-living-life. Until of course you finally buy a house somewhere. Then all you have to do is remember where you put the matches.