I’ve been in Purge Mode lately.
Call it overly optimistic spring cleaning or whatever — but I’ve been going through the entire house and taking carloads of stuff to donation centers.
Everything has been up for consideration: the dog bed that Olive mysteriously hates, the gifts I never liked to begin with, the clothes that don’t fit right, boxes full of mystery cords, and CDs that define my entire personality but no longer have a use.
It’s a big question: what do we really need?
In reality, I need nothing more than my husband and dog, and maybe my weighted blanket. Oh and maybe about 400 books…
So yeah, you can see that things start to go off the rails, and suddenly, all the stuff feels like it’s weighing me down. And not in a good weighted blanket sort of way.
I’m not a big consumer (shopping is my nightmare) but I can be sentimental. As I look at shelves and closets and venture into the basement, it’s challenging to discern what really matters to me.
One of my problems is that I can assign profound meaning to ANYTHING. I anthropomorphize everything. I name my car and television and computer. (Mister, Martin, and Tara — in case you were wondering.) I like to buy the dented cans at the grocery store because I feel bad for them and want them to feel loved and purposeful.
But at some point, you look around and think - do I really need that?
Take, for example, my broken bowl.
About a decade ago, I got really into making pottery. A local high school has a pottery studio, so I used to go there in the evenings for a class. I didn’t really do the traditional high school thing as a kid because I was working on films and stuff, so it’s novel for me to walk past the lockers and the gym, which seem to be eternally infused with teenage sweat, angst, and longing.
I learned how to operate a pottery wheel, select glazes, and fire finished pieces. Just like everyone else who watched Ghost, I thought pottery wheels were hot. However, the reality was something different; it was mostly just messy, and I kept my head down to avoid chatting with my classmates (#introvertlife), which meant I always got clay in my hair.
My finished pottery pieces turned out clunky and uneven, but the creative process was pure joy to me.
Eventually, just out of sheer volume, I managed to make a couple of items that were not terrible. One of them was a yarn bowl. (You put a ball of yarn in it, and it has a small slit in the side where you thread the yarn through so it doesn’t get tangled as you knit.) The color fired beautifully, and it was almost kind of symmetrical.
I kept that bowl on a shelf for years, until it eventually got knocked off the bookcase and smashed into four jagged chunks.
That hurt. I had worked for hours on something I loved, and suddenly, it was a pile of shattered shards.
I was able to salvage most of it and got to work with some Gorilla glue. But there was one piece that had been shattered so much, that it had turned to dust and was impossible to fix.
In Japan, there is a tradition of repairing broken pottery with gold - it’s called Kintsugi. The broken part is seen as a unique piece of the history of it, which adds to its character.
I didn’t have any gold on hand, just Gorilla glue, but still — my bowl has a story of struggle and resilience now. There is great beauty within the imperfection.
It feels true, doesn’t it? For some of us, even when we put ourselves together, there might always be that one piece that is missing, that one place where we remain raw and ragged. But that doesn’t mean we are no longer beautiful. We’re actually stronger in the places where we put ourselves back together.
We survived.
So, as I try to figure out what I really need, I think I’ll keep this broken bowl — as clearly it’s a physical manifestation of the resilience of the human spirit. How could I get rid of that?
And I’ll also probably need to keep the mix tapes I made for various boys I was trying to convince to fall in love with me.
This purging thing is hard.
Here’s what else has been going on
What I’ve been watching
Just. Watch.
What I’ve been reading
I’ve been on a re-reading kick lately. I just re-read one of my top three favorite books of all time - A Prayer for Owen Meany. It’s probably been eight years or so since I read it last, and it holds up just beautifully. I love how I re-read a book at a different time of life, and it takes on an entirely different meaning. Jeremy got home five minutes after I finished reading it, and I was sobbing on the couch. He looked at me and said one word - “Owen?” and when I nodded, he came to hug me. He gets it.
What I’ve been listening to
More bowls I’ll be keeping
Speaking of bowls, I’ll definitely be keeping this incredible singing bowl my friend Lewis gave me. It’s a Kansa bronze singing bowl, and this particular type is hand-crafted in Nepal under the light of the full moon each month. There is a really cool video about how they are made, and you can watch it here. I’m not very good at playing it yet, but it is so very pretty. Lewis’ shop is called Bodhisattva Trading Company and their selection is wonderful.
What I loved
“Never waste your suffering.” This video shared a new (to me) writing prompt and it felt so powerful.
Thank you so much for reading, Friends. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Much love,
~Lisa