Purge!

I am not sitting with my head over a toilet bowl, nor am I drinking the latest cleansing liquid diet. The last few weeks have been a time of enormous serenditipous changes in my post retirement life. I did get my certificate in life coaching, yay. Cannot believe I embarked on, and completed this course, but I did, and I have a certificate to prove it! It is well known that the Bay Area, in which I have resided for an undisclosed number of years, is now probably the most expensive area to live on the planet. I am not exaggerating either. I have lived in my present apartment, which I love, for 21 years! Longer than I have lived anywhere in my life. The rent is raised every year, and pretty soon, retired me will not be able to continue to live here. Well, as a remarkable stroke of kismet would have it, I will be moving into an affordable rental just 2 miles from where I presently live. I am extremely grateful for the way this all worked out. I still have two months beore I move, but I have begun purging. Lodged tightly between the legs of a table I had bought at the Ashby Flea Market many years ago which is in my basement, under shelves containing obscene numbers of suitcases, is a trunk full of memories. Today i decided to begin my purge. I moved empty boxes which friends have brought me in anticipation of my move. I moved suitcases, I moved shoeboxes and cans of paint. I moved a rolled up piece of foam I had used as insulation under the garage door. I moved and pushed and hauled, and eventually I was able to pull the trunk toward me. Seated on an ancient little wooden bench which I brought from my cottage in Rockridge. I opened the trunk and began to go through, and throw out, all the years of my life. After six hours I threw away about 5lbs of slides (remember those things). I don't think they can be recycled, so into the trash they went. Thirty pounds, at least of photographs - South Africa, Greece, London, Europe, Recent, ancient, Montenegro, Mexico India, Israel, Israel, Israel. Family, friends, friends' children, friends' grandchildren, wedding photographs, photographs of tombstones, photos from work, my 'babies' - all gone into an enormous black plastic trash bag. Then came mementoes, I had made collages from the ash fragments of the fire in Oakland, I wrote about the Loma Prieta Quake, so many events - the change in South Africa. The Gulf War in Israel -- photographs, articles, all commemorating these historic events, all gone into the recycling bin and the trash. Clothes to go to Richmond Rescue Mission, soap molds to go to schools, crayons, paints, meditation benches, yoga bolsters, all gone. Do we need to hang on to all our stuff, our history, our memories? Hopefully the lessons we have learned, those we loved, are with us, in our hearts, our bodies, our minds and souls, until we too, move on. The great eternal mystery. All gone1