Purging

Sometimes I just want nothing. NO THING. Know what I mean? I want to hire a giant vacuum to come and suck my house empty. I want to strip myself and everything around me down to the skin and the walls and the floor, and then I want to paint. White. I've gotten that familiar feeling again today. Or rather, lately. Usually, when this desire for nothingness grips me all it takes to get over it (not that I want to) is for me to begin the heinous task of weeding out things; that's when my weaker nature kicks in and I get sentimental or nervous or forget that I live in the Abundant Universe, I get tired, I chicken out, I say: "Oh, never mind. Let's go get a movie," or whatever.

Today is a cleaning and laundry day for me. Even the wool sweaters and handknit socks are getting washed. I want to welcome the new year with more sanitary digs and a fresh closet. In the middle of my doings, Rob came downstairs and asked, "Got anything that needs to go to D.I.?" Suddenly I was ripping . . . ripping through my wardrobe and nearly living my dream to the hilt. I'm not quite naked now, but honestly, I was brutal in my purging and I actually made it through the task without losing my momentum. Too tight, too short, too loose, too old, too stupid, too drab, wrong season, too colorful, too synthetic, too much, too much, too much. How did I come to hate all of these clothes? What have I got against clothes?

I can remember a number of years ago a neighbor friend of mine, Rachel, was talking to me about how much stuff we all have, even those of us supposedly at the low end of the American food chain. She was on about the unfairness of the unequal distribution of worldy goods and how many people on the planet are truly, hard-down poor, and . . . well, you can likely imagine the rest. She had some sort of brain sizzle that sparked a blaze in her own wardrobe, and she left herself with, as I recall, a couple of dresses for Sunday, the barest minimum of interchangeable day-to-day pieces, and lots of new space in her closet. While I agreed with her noble philosophy of disengaging from the monster of consumerism, and was even eager to cut back some, her bare bones approach felt a widow's mite extreme and I just couldn't/wouldn't fall in, except in theory.

I'm closer to that ideal now, but I don't think I'll ever get there. Do I want to? Yes and no. I was in a serious relationship for four years with a spartan minimalist, capital S, capital M. The lifestyle's got its appeal, for instance on days like today when I'm sick to death of stuff and stuff and stuff's stuff and would prefer a blank canvas to start my life over again, but I don't know that my long-term nakedness is ultimately going to do me or those starving, shivering people elsewhere in the world any good. Having satisfying sufficiency while not going overboard with consumption or demands . . . or guilt . . . is likely to get me farther in the goal of helping my fellowman and maintaining my sanity and self-respect.

Anyway, I took down what was not a clothes horse's closet to begin with. I reduced it to less than 25%. I've got enough to cover me for a while. I see some holes in the wardrobe, but that's nothing that the Abundant Universe and a few thrift shopping trips can't fix, but I am not in a hurry. I'm okay with jeans and sweaters till I can round it out again, though not so plumply. I honestly do like the idea of having fewer pieces but ones that work well together, so that's what I'll aim for when I get to it.

If I wasn't so tired I might go on another purge-o-matic frenzy and empty out my house next. Anybody know where I can rent a monster vac?