Regarding packing

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Helpful Hint #1 –

Always pack your liquor, and your cocktail glasses last.
We did not. (…it would be more accurate to say that I did not.)

This way you will have them to fortify yourself as you pack everything.
And you will know right where they are when you arrive, bedraggled, at your new place and begin the unpacking.

 

Haiku 4

imageHolding on to things
That are not very useful
Purely ornament

We cling to beauty
When there’s more than enough
If we look outside

It’s a poverty
To feel attached in this way
Let go, pass it on

 

Thank you all for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you ~
XO Donna

 

 

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One step up

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…and two steps back is the title of one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs. It falls right after “Tunnel of Love” and just in front of “Hard to be a Saint in the City.”   Lately, when listening to this CD while driving to and from work, I’d get stuck on “One Step Up,” and keep hitting replay.

imageI was struggling with the two steps back. With letting go of all of the beautiful stuff we own. I was having a hard time seeing it as a success, rather than as a failure of some sort…going backwards.
This is America, after all, where we are raised to believe that “he who dies with the most stuff wins!”

We are both grateful that we created and enjoyed all of this stuff, but we’ve realized that it’s a responsibility we don’t want anymore. Houses need constant upkeep, things always break and need repair, things need dusting and polishing. It’s a daily challenge to stave off entropy; the natural decline into disorder. And that’s when you don’t have a storm like the one we had last weekend that took three days to clean-up after.

Maybe success in life comes from realizing, and acting on the fact, that stuff doesn’t set our hearts free.
Maybe that two steps backward that is breaking my heart right now, is actually an “enlightenment” that can continue until I am free at last.

Keepin' up with the Joneses

Keepin’ up with the Joneses

Free to enjoy our friends and the experiences we plan to create. Then free to enjoy all of the wonderful memories.

I am a gypsy at heart. As I keep letting go, I hope to get back to that place from which anything is possible, and everything is happening around the next bend.

XO Donna

Just add streamers!

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imageI am waiting for a new friend to come to my house to buy my bike. I have been apprehensive ever since I got the message that she wanted it. You see, it’s one thing to say  you are downsizing and need to pass along the things you don’t use, and won’t need.  “I will sell my ____(fill in the blank).  I don’t use it, haven’t in quite a few years.” And it is another thing entirely to let go of it…and all the memories attached to it. (In spite of getting it tuned-up and putting tires on it that cost more than I’m selling it for). It’s a lovely “heart-chakra-green” city bike. I rode it all over Austin when I was younger and lived right downtown. I had a dear group of friends, and we would meet and ride out to dinner, then to the Posse for a pitcher. We’d head over to LBJ Library and jump curbs, do wheelies, show-off for each other, and work up a sweat! Then we’d head back south across the Congress Ave. bridge just in time to watch the bats fly out to catch their dinner, then we’d all go on to our respective homes.   I was in my forties. I was in the best shape of my life. I was fierce, and I was free! Those friends are all still friends – although my BFF Teresa has passed away. Cleaning the bike, I think of her, and wonder what she’d say about my dilemma. Oh, hell, I know exactly what she’d say! She’d tell me, “Awwww, go on. It’s just a bike. You don’t need a city bike anymore. What you need is a cruiser. With a basket. And a horn. And streamers on the handle-bars!” imageTeresa was like that. Always in the moment. And the next one. And the next one. Sunny arrived to pick up the bike.  To celebrate, I opened a bottle of wine for us. Two hours later, I am in love with Sunny! I know both the bike,  and everything it represents to me, will be honored.  Sunny is an amazing woman…and although I’m  losing a bike, I’m gaining a sister! We will downsize and get down to the “beautiful basics” in order to sell our home and move forward. I will strive to stay present every time I feel my breath catch and think that I can’t let something go. (Ultimately, I can’t take any of it with me when I leave this plane, right?)  Did I say how difficult this is???? I will remember why I am doing this, what the trade-off  is: I will feel free again! XO Donna