Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Recycling



Ever since I was told my book was "almost there," I haven't touched it. It is in a pile right next to my desk taunting me, but nothing about it beckons me. Quite the opposite. Instead I am knee deep into a complete purging of all the extra stuff in my house. No drawer is safe. No closet. No nook. No cranny. Today I will go drop off two large shelves worth of old paint at the hazardous waste site, wash those shelves like there's no tomorrow, and be blissed out as I put freshly reorganized totes in their place.

All the while I sort, toss, haul, and wipe, I am listening to soothing music and lost in my thoughts. It's a good lost. It's actually, the best kind of lost. It's a mindlessness kind of thinking, much more like meditation than anything else. And as I go through old things, I see that I am truly done with them, and that is healing. Done with taxes that go back to 1999. Done with different phases and eras of my life I don't care ever to go back to. Done with projects I thought I'd finish but have freed myself from ever needing to. Done with some of the boxes that hold hard times, too: all the paperwork that went with my father's death. All the different information on therapies we tried or considered trying. All the ventures I toyed with that didn't pan out.

Done.

It's time to make my house, and especially the basement, no longer a graveyard. No longer a place where things that are over, are stored forever. Keepsakes need to move. Junk needs to move. The energy needs to move.

What I am finding as more goes out the door, is that new reservoirs of my own energy and creativity are freed up, too. I am no longer considering the purging to be writing avoidance, but pre-writing. A necessary step towards being in a place where I can allow more in, because I released a bunch. It's really recycling, if you will, a recycling of energy.

5 comments:

Dee said...

Decades ago, the poet and pilot Anne Morrow Lindbergh worte, "For beauty, for significance, it's space we need. And since we have no space today in which to frame the act, the word, the face of beauty, it's no longer beautiful."

She also wrote in her poem "Bare Tree" the following last stanza: "Blow thorough me, Life, pared down at last to bone, so fragile and so fearless have I grown."

I think you and Anne would have been great friends.

By the way, both of these poems are in her book "The Unicorn and Other Poems."

fullsoulahead.com said...

Love.

kario said...

Yay! Honor what makes you feel good. I suspect that as you become more and more free and open, thoughts of rewriting will come into your head and make the rewrite that much more clear and effortless.

Love.

Dee said...

Dear Carrie,
I always find your blog postings thought-provoking. So today I've awarded love. the Versatile Blogger Award. Please read my post to see your award!

http://cominghometomyself.blogspot.com/2011/08/ta-dah-award.html

Peace today as you declutter!

Stephanie D said...

Found your blog via Dee. I love this post. I have been trying to free myself from old junk for a long time now.
Following!
Steph

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