purge

This wasn't a mountaintop experience for me, all things considered, but I want to ask myself a particular question anyway. At Sky Ranch, after a week of breathlessly beautiful high wilderness hiking and leaving the world behind, we'd have to ask our campers on the last day: "What will you bring with you down the mountain?" What are the ways you've changed? Which relics will remind you of this mountaintop experience?

Packing is always a challenge. At this point I'm faced with the mathematical necessity of paring down my belongings into that which can fit into 2 suitcases now plus 2 suitcases when I come back in November. And in four years of living, you accumulate a lot of stuff.

I look forward to the purge. There is so much I don't want to take home with me. There is no room in my suitcase for loneliness or desperation or empty-eyed weeping. I'm not packing the lies or the insecurity or the abandonment issues.

Some things will have to be bid a fond adieu. The 8-year-old rollerblades with worn-out wheels and no brake rubber left? Toss. The books that my mom sent by the crateful to plug up the holes in my life? Passed on to the next generation. The clothes that have been beaten down by the insanely efficient German washing machines? Who needs them. Other stuff that didn't make the cut: my old winter jacket (which I bought for my high wilderness wanderings in 1997), kitchen appliances with the wrong plug, ratty old guest towels, pile upon pile of accumulated junk.

It feels good.

I might tackle the old food at the back of the fridge today too.