Inventory

I went to Pier 1 Imports today, armed with a list of items I hoped to purchase for my new apartment: Sheer curtain panels; decorative chair covers; a small bench; a coatrack for a wall. I had seen all of these items for sale at Pier 1 in recent years, spotting them during my many, many visits to this colorful emporium.

The helpful salesman informed me that they no longer carry the sheer cotton curtain panels, nor decorative chair covers, nor coatracks. Savvy retailers that they are, they turn much of their inventory quite frequently. Disappointed but not discouraged, I asked this man where I might find what I was looking for. "Linens n' Things," he suggested.

Moving is a time to clear out my own inventory, deciding which items will make the cut and accompany me to the new place, which items will remain in storage, and which items will be discarded into the ashbin of my personal history. It is first and foremost a psychic sorting, an evaluation identity, values and direction in life that determines the physical objects with which I'll continue to associate. Before leaving for Israel, I did a massive purge of my personal property, unburdening myself of belongings that no longer suited who I thought I was becoming. I relinquished an eight foot couch; it was a beautiful piece of furniture but keeping it in my life would have required finding a large enough apartment or paying to store it, and I didn't want either constraint in my life. With much relief, I put it on a truck to California, where it now resides in my older brother's home. The fellow on the first floor of my former house bought several bookcases and lamps. A toothless man with a van adopted two chests of drawers that I had posted on Craigslist. I schlepped carloads of "stuff", mostly clothes and most of which I cannot even recall, to the local Goodwill.

You'd think that after such an unloading that I'd be done, but I am still finding opportunities to cull my collection of clothing and things. My goal for my new place is to bring only things which I use frequently and/or bring me pleasure. If something is in good condition, but I no longer like it or use it, or if there is no happy memory associated with it, out it goes. I'm no longer carrying things with me "just in case" I might want it in the future. I'm willing to take the risk that one day I might regret having given something away; my days as a packrat are over.

The reward for periodic purges of one's stuff, as exhausting as it can be, both mentally and physically, is that it clears room for the new. The reason I am looking for decorative chair covers is that the woman who used to live in my new apartment left me two wooden chairs....among other things.