Horror Vacui

All of this stuff, (except the recycling wine bottles) came out of the closet in my front hallway.  Boots, gloves, coats, a tapestry, a bucket, a giant bag of napkins...it was all in there.

We've been cleaning out clutter, getting this house ready to go on the market ASAP.  Anyone interested in a mid-century, center-hall colonial hit me up!  It's in a great town.

So anyway, I have put off going through any of Kate's possessions for the past nine months.  They've  been in all kinds of bins...

I read once that Nature Abhors a Vacuum...

I'm creating a vacuum in my life and in my possessions. There is something very freeing in losing things, losing people.  This "loss" changes a person, makes you view the world in a very different perhaps fatalistic way.

I'm tired of others(the media, blogs etc) telling me how to live.  Don't put this on your skin, don't eat this, eat this, don't smoke that, don't eat that...it's all too much for a human to grasp.

Peace of mind at the end of the day is being able to know that you did your best.  I mean why don't we want all these toxins and GMO's?  We think that WE are in control.

Guess what, we're not.  Death, is inevitable.  In 1780, folks lived to be about 45 years old.  Why do we think we are actually in control of such things by eating/not eating things?  I don't get it.

This is what I know, when I die, I just want to think I enjoyed my life.  I loved others, I made a difference even in a small way.  I may go next year, I don't know.  Death is such a strange part of life, we cannot grasp it until we see it and experience.

Don't be afraid of it.  Fear motivates people in the most disgusting ways.  I say be as free as possible, free of fear.  Fear will add NOTHING to a life.  Remove fear like the clutter I am removing, fill that vacuum with something, anything else and trust me your life will change.

I too am learning not to fear.  I am no longer afraid of grief or sadness, I'm learning to embrace them, realizing that I am tougher than I ever knew.


Some days I wake up with the sun streaming down on my face and a deep longing in my heart.  An urge for going somewhere new, setting down my own roots because I am free in a way most people will never experience.  I am some orphan in a sea of possibility.

And I keep dreaming of finding some land somewhere, raising some sheep, making some hard cider from my own orchards, running solar power, breeding horses,  a bountiful vegetable garden, a bunch of lilacs in my windows, mountain views, a pond for late afternoon dips, canning my produce, waking at 4:30 AM and falling into bed after a long day of working on my land.  

All that I'm describing is so very different than my current New Jersey existence.   

I don't want to pay to get some tan on my skin, I want it to be there from being out in a field. 

I don't want to read "Made in China" in my sweater, I want to grow and knit my own wool, have my own stove heating my house, jars of my sweet summer tomatoes preserved on my shelf, bacon from my own slaughtered pig, eggs from hens I've cultivated....

The vacuum in my own life is authenticity.  I long for it.  I'm not sure yet where I will purchase this land.  May be in Vermont, Oregon, some midwestern place, may be Southern....

I just know that I am not made for the life I've been living, I'm made for something much more simple yet complex in other ways.  I need to see the actual fruit of my labor.  

SO, I'm cleaning out closets.  Selling my Mother's house so I can go out into the wide world and discover exactly what is missing in my little vacuum of self.  Maybe I will grow some Christmas Trees on the side of a mountain--who knows?  To be all cliche, the world is my oyster.