"Because who you are may be all you're ever going to be" -Tiny

I have, for pretty much my whole life, been obsessed with tiny living spaces. The Tiny House movement really just assures me that there are other people who love tiny things. I spent my childhood trying to convince my parents that they should buy me a sheepherder's wagon and I could live in the yard. Whether this was solely an obsession with tiny things or any equal obsession with solitude is not clear.

Problematically, I am also a packrat. There are all these possibilities for things. Everything has potential uses, and by god, I might want it in the future for a project. And where am I if I've thrown it away?! Right. So, we see the trouble. Plus, there's the fact that I LOVE things. I love cute dishes and weird kitschy stuff and knick-knacks and souvenirs from vacations. I love pretty clutters. I love books. I read something earlier about donating or giving away books after you read them so that they don't clutter your house. Books are NEVER clutter. I appreciate the sentiment, but I was also a little heart-broken.

Which means that I find myself with way too much stuff. Way, way, way too much stuff. And a desire for more pretty things. And now, a stronger desire to cut back. I have too many clothes, too many project supplies, too many things.

There are a dozen concerns complicating the situation. I love crafts and projects and making things--literally, without these creative pursuits, I don't believe my life would be my own. So I need to figure out ways to keep that in my life without letting the materialism of it overwhelm me. And my life. I need something enthusiastic--something that captures my spirit and magic and which gives me the space to expand and explore on that. I don't really have that space where I am. I want to have essentials, and to not desire more than that. I want to think about what matters to me and how to live that life. I want to make this life a home. I'm interested in the collaborative efforts of our worlds, our selves.

So I'm starting an experiment. Surely one that people have done before me and one that others will do better than me. But, this is my story. I started sometime this year (some months ago--this is how well I track things) with a goal to not buy any new clothes (shoes, underwear, and maybe socks notwithstanding) for a year. I gave myself permission to buy second-hand clothes that could be modified, or not, and to buy fabric and notions for sewing my own clothes. After as many months as it has been (I really don't know--five, maybe? three?), I feel like it is a start, but not enough. I haven't gotten rid of any clothes (maybe a box. A small box) and I have acquired a lot more craft stuff and the clutter seems to be taking over. Not least in my considerations for this experiment is the fact that I manage my money terribly. I want to be more responsible. More fiscally responsible, socially responsible.

Back to the experiment, I will not be purchasing stuff. Exemptions include: necessities (food, pet food, toiletries, transportation), gifts (within reason--as yet to be determined what the hell that means), experiences (eating out, movies, museums, and dates), and conscious decisions. The main purpose will be to limit my intake of stuff to thoroughly thought out purchases. Ideally, no purchases would be made spur of the moment or without prior consideration and list-making (lists are the best, obviously). Second, I'll be focusing on getting rid of things. I'm not entirely certain how to quantify this, but perhaps in removal of boxes by week. Or something like that. Finally, I'm gonna have to work on some concentrated goal-making and list-making and life-tracking. I'm going to have to work on making sure I track this journey. I want to make the most of this time I have.

Day 41

I am dissolving, into the ink-drawn vision of a woman, the kind who is disappearing behind her hair and turning away from you toward a future unknown.

I can't pull myself away from art today, and I am hungry for meaning. Every time I see an over-easy egg, I think of the Counting Crows.

How do we know if the choices we're making are taking us toward or away from our dreams? My ma asked if I was making progress in the resolution of my marriage today. I laughed and told her that it's tough to know what progress is when you don't know where you want to go.

It's possible that my I've made complete insanity out of my life. I've called a hiatus on one of the key relationships that kept me from utter disaster post marriage. I've developed friendships I never expected. I've created this strange space of truth that, contrary to expectations, makes each of us sad, though I feel, too, as if the rains have finally come. I've friends who I love (and who love me) with a fierceness I can't comprehend. I've seen beauty and joy in the smallest of moments. I've experienced rage and hatred so strong they unravel me. I've felt a passion I thought I'd lost. I've rekindled the spark in my soul that moves me on, faster and wilder, toward a future that may not exist, but that I reach for with an aching desire.

Day 38

Going Down Rough

I want to carve the truths of my being on my skin, to create in reality the cartography M. Ondaatje writes about so beautifully. I want to be permanently scarred by the stories that created me. To remind me when I am lost and confused and alone and terrified of all the places I've been, of the ones who have loved me and left, the ones who have stayed, and of the millions of empty inches waiting for their story to be told.

It is not the same skin here today that lived and breathed the stories of yesteryears and this skin now is just a fleeting moment before the future. These cells will dissolve away into dust and memory. If I do not record my history on my body, how will I ever remember the truth?

Day 18

"Maybe that's all family really is...A group of people that miss the same imaginary place." -Garden State

Sometimes the scariest place to be is the one you know you can't leave until you make it through all the pain and fear and sorrow. It's worse when you think you've dealt with all of it, and then it comes back, full-tilt to overwhelm you again. I'm trying to breathe through these days, but I am lonely for something I don't know what is and hungry to be on my own again.

I want to move east, east, east until I can't any longer, until I have crossed oceans and seas and returned to myself, renewed and different. I miss Philadelphia like an aching in my heart. Small pieces of song--trumpets blaring--or images--the fence slowly drying from morning rain and the vines creeping through--dissolve me. I would give anything for a rainstorm to soak this valley, to clean the air and wash away all of our mistakes. I run as though I can leave behind all the things I've tired of.

The Mountain Goats, newly discovered, play on repeat, and I can almost not help but to sob. My breath escapes me in tiny gasps, like the reverse of love. And that's the trick, isn't it? All of the best bits, by flipside, are the worst and so on, so it goes. There is huge comfort in having someone who knows all the best and worst pieces of you and loves you anyway. But in being known, we lose all the surprise and beauty and newness of someone. How do we choose between all these multitudes of futures? How do we decide to take the good and the bad and survive all of it together?

When I was young, I used to dream of a lover, a man I didn't know whose face I never quite saw. He had black hair and was stunning. I have not thought of this dream in decades, but I wonder now: who is he?

Day 15

Sometimes, the best we can do is terrible. We create a giant mess of broken pieces and bad decisions and wrong turns. And yet...we are left with nothing but to get up the next day and try again. And again and again and again until something, somewhere, eventually clicks.

I wonder if this is all we are seeking: that beautiful moment of clarity and "rightness" when things click and we see suddenly that we are not all entirely wrong choices. That sometimes all of the wrong choices and mistakes add up to something amazing. And sometimes, they don't. Sometimes wrong choices are simply wrong, bad, horrible decisions that lead us nowhere except away from what we want. Or away from what we think we want. Or into the deep abyss that is all we believe we deserve.

It is here that I find myself tonight, facing off against a wall of bad decisions and heartbreak and a loss of direction. Here's hoping that the stars shine brightly on my path and that the way becomes clear again. That in the morning, when I try to do my best, I might actually succeed, if just for an hour, a moment.

On these days I wonder if one can use kindness as a defense mechanism. And does this make it a lie? An unkindness? An inherently selfish move that couldn't possibly be kind?

I cough up the ashes of a broken heart and wonder if taking up smoking would have been easier.

Day 4

Brewforia may be my home away from home. And...okay! I am discovering awesome people and new potential and that we are all terrified of the same things. Each and every one of us. We're just trying to find our ways in the is big wide scary world, with no real direction and hoping that a misstep doesn't cost us too much. It is a crazed, blessed, magic place we live.

Day 3

Surviving on beer, hope, and this wildly undeserved love

I am always amazed at how we come to love a person or family. What small bits and pieces over the months or years of our relationships add up the this compassion and faith and hope in and for that other person? How is it that I can be so blessed with so many who love me and want good things for me?

A dear friend recently told me that to know me is to be blessed by brilliance and compassion and that anyone who is not blinded by it is unworthy. How have I come by so much good and wonder and beauty? Why is it that I should be so lucky? Sometimes I think half of my heartbreak is caused simply by the number of people who hold me so highly in their regard, who would and can do everything within their power to help me through this. My life, even in these darkest of moments, is truly charmed.