November is Purge-atory.

I'm about to introduce everyone to a side of myself about which I'm becoming increasingly sheepish (yes, yes I laid the SMACK DOWN on that sentence and its grammar. So there).

That would be my pack-ratty side. My hoarding side. My squirrels-things-away side. I went home this weekend and my sister who also suffers from Useless Tchotchkeophilia had started boxing the things I'd left in my old room. Please bear in mind that this symbolizes my finally having been kicked out of my house for real -- I no longer have a real room and rage though I might about my birthright that's the nature of siblings and moving out. So as I snuck two or three new boxes into my parents' already overflowing attic, I was confronted with the sight of "Stuff -- MCM"... even one box whimsically marked "Cait's candles and the like". It was the smallest box, so I took it. I'm running low on candles in Boston, you see.

I get more joy from these candles being lit for thirty seconds in my room here than I ever did while they collected dust on my bookshelf back home. That should teach me some kind of lesson.

Nevertheless, having seen all the crap that still remains in my old space made me realize just how much of it I still had and still was unable to remove from my life, to the point that I've even transported much of it to Boston and tried desperately by dint of surgical procedure to extract these knick-knacks and mementos from my possession. It's a lot harder than you think; sure, the collection of Mardi Gras beads from I don't know when -- even the one with the shiny disco balls -- doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot, but the strange little quilted box with the little ball of wax and a black rock and a pentacle made out of wire mean a lot more than anyone could expect (Alpha I at Jackson's Mill, years ago, the last night of camp...).

So I have to go a little slower than some getting rid of their junk. It's not easy for me although I'm much better at it than I have been and I think that at least one thing which will help is blurbing about the pieces that I finally get rid of. Here's one:


Once upon a time it was my birthday and I was in a pub with a friend. A man, who never even spoke to me, handed me a flower that he'd made out of a napkin. It was enchanting. Years later, in another pub (this one in Boston) a wayward sailor did the same thing, bargaining loudly that I had never gotten a flower like that before. He was nice enough, so I didn't tell him that I had. But since that time, I've had two paper flowers. Now, granted, you don't get paper flowers all that often, but it was so remarkable to have been given two paper flowers that I doubt I'll forget either the trick or the people who gave them to me -- and now I can throw the flowers away without feeling as though I'm losing something.