Thursday, September 24, 2015

accumulate /əˈkyo͞om(y)əˌlāt/

A new couch, two buffets and a hutch. Desks, tables, shelves and artwork. Televisions, stereos and other appliances. I gave them away. Area rugs. Gave them away. Two dining room sets and more furniture. Gave it all away.

Dishes, cutlery, crockery, boxes of stationery, music albums and boxes of who knows what. Boxes under the bed, boxes in closets, boxes in the cubby hole, under the stairs. Christmas wrap, decorations, party supplies. I shed it all, amazed at how good it felt; like a thousand anchors severed so this ship can finally sail again.

I kept my bed and books and comfy chair and select few works of art: not the priciest ones, not the stuff elegantly framed; not the original oils. Just the images I most liked looking at; the stuff that reminded me of the life I wanted. I kept enough clothes, some mementos and gifts from loved ones.

To my neighbor I gave the bamboo plant I had bought to serve as centrepiece for a dinner party, a thing that afterwards, I had not expected to survive my neglect. And when I saw it there in the neighbor’s window, front and centre among her many plants; this ignored thing still living and now appreciated… well… it put a cheer in my heart and a tear in my eye.

Farewell, little bamboo. I’m on my way.

No comments: