I hope it's not a foreboding of bad luck but when I laid claim to my new dwelling, all suited up with preliminary baggage: the important stuff like the small French press, mug, dark roast coffee, cream, some basic pantry stock, a small table, chair, layouts, suggestions, wouldn't you know it the key wouldn't work.
Because it didn't I met two of my neighbours, Elizabeth and Carol, who endeavoured mightily to help me. No luck. Not even a twitch out of the lock. I called the administrator (not a super, no, he's an administrator) no answer, left a message. Schlepped (with difficulty) my stuff back down again to the car (the ladies offered to host my bits in their apartments but I declined) and waited. I don't know about you but as I age I find the Type A personality has not being paying attention to meditation and OM practices whatsoever. So frustration and a small pity party ensued. He called me within 10 minutes. He'd been at the hospital and left his phone in his car. Upside was he found another key in the office and told me there were trolleys and roll-y carts to assist residents in hauling stuff around. He took my baggage up and we did the transfer of keys.
So I made myself a cup of La Java Française and sat down at the wee table and pondered my new space. And pondered. And thought: cripes what have I done. And thought: this is all good. And once again, I forgot to take pics for Grandgirl. She is the space expert. Seriously. At twelve she was organizing my car. At fourteen organizing my storage space in Toronto. At 20 she travelled Europe for the summer with a small backpack. At 21 she taught in India for months with a ditto. A genius with space and minimum necessities.
As a boost I watched The Minimalist. Recommend. Seriously. I love the 333 concept too. Though I've been adhering to minimum clothes for a while. And shoes. I was comforted by both. Yes, I'm doing the right thing.
I set up an area in the garage today with a table and loads of boxes of all sorts of stuff for me to go through. I set it up out there as my tourist season starts soon. Leo is an amazing help for the lugging as I am no longer able. I've recycled so much paper, cards and letters already but there's still more. Frighteningly more. But not as intimidating as I feared. The movies and books are the next go-through, though I've donated a lot already.
So yeah, I'll get there.
Please see my comments on your previous post. I put them in the wrong place. Love the minimalist desk area and that blue. Very serene.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for ideas to maximise and hopefully recycle some of my own stuff. The Minimalist gave me some great ideas.
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Congratulations. It's going to be hard but also rejuvenating. I loved the idea of when everyone else was still planning Thanksgiving sit-down dinners for 19 (and the rest that goes with that lifestyle) I was munching on a sammich mid-trail. It renews you, yes.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was going to die the day I sold all my books. Called a seller I knew to come in and he carted out box after box. Didn't die at all. Of course, along came the 'netz and a "Bookmark" section about twice the circumference of the Earth... .
I have a friend put her whole set up in the tiniest broom closet. I wonder myself if it's not time for a laptop. Office is wherever you want. You can be one of those writers in Starbucks.
So true. Condensing is easy when we look at alternatives like two amazing local coffee shops near my new place. Who roast their own beans and have eclectic customers.always invigorating.
DeleteBut today? Up and down again. Good, not so good. Overwhelm, underwhelm. In other words:normal.
Funny you should mention a closet........😏
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I love this desk
ReplyDeleteand you are giving me a lot of thoughts and ideas..
Oh good Ernestine. I'll document my progress as I think it important for us aging downsizers. And exciting in a weird way too.
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Thanks for the "Minimalist" video link - I will watch in full later, but have sampled a little - it's a good one!
ReplyDeleteSight of the mini-house in the part I sampled reminded me of the one in an episode of latest season of "Grace & Frankie" we've watched recently. Frankie's son bought one to live in - on wheels too! :-)
I like the mini-office in the photograph - great use of space. Your new-home-to-be sounds to be in a nice civilised area (home ground coffee etc) and those neighbours-to-be sounded definitely to be of the good-neighbour variety. All signs positive! :-)
Yes I was impressed too T with my unplanned interactions. The lady across from me has lived in her apartment 20 years and lost her husband last year. She has a cabin on an offshore island about a day's drive from here and tries to spend 2 months there with her daughter every summer. Very un-nosy about me which I liked and not a chat-a-thon at all. Easygoing. Good vibe off both of them at different times.
ReplyDeleteEverybody I know loves G&F and I was so relieved when a friend posted on FB recently how much she despised it. Me too. I persisted for 2-1/2 episodes. But we are the exception I think. As everybody around me counts the days for the next series :)
I will get back to your wonderful sci-fi. I'm winding up tax season and no time for reading.
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Re G & F - I'm not an avid fan myself, we watch it because husband really likes Lily Tomlin.
DeleteShe's definitely not in her best Lily mode in this series though. I blame the writing.
Yes agreed. It was the awful writing that got to me. I love both the actors.Jane in Klute was amazing. And in On Golden Pond also. Lily a brilliant comedian.
DeleteI kept thinking it could be a wonderful series if written more sensitively and not these overblown caricatures.
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Do you have the full film? Link takes us to a trailer. Anyway, it's all about the US. I think the story is different here, practically anywhere. Well except for maybe Toronto.
ReplyDeleteMy huge failing was cookbooks. An elderly (oh my gawd, I'm there now) relative once said, looking at my shelves: I don't believe I've ever had a "cookbook". I realized sometime around 2:14 a.m. that I cooked all my life, the same 10 recipes. Same entree different sauce. No point to all those ridiculous excesses. Tomato soup, now with 17 ingredients. And the like. So I finally learned the more STUFF you put in a recipe, the more the Tomato soup costs!
It's on Netflix, the doc I mean. But the blog is useful in the absence of .
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Ever since you have been writing about moving and downsizing drastically I find myself quite tearful following your progress. I commend you for being so open and honest; or, in new speak, "authentic". It's a wonderful quality which you show again and again in your writing.
ReplyDeleteI can only hope that I go the way of all my fore"bears". The most amazing example my great grandmother who lived in what I used to think of as an Aladin's cave. She lived till her late nineties. She was such a tiny woman and shrinking, had buried so many in her life, including her daughter who had lived with her, yet there she was - till her last dying breath totally independent. When she died my father (her grandson) ordered a skip. I still haven't forgiven him for not involving me in sorting through a lifetime of memories - some of which I would have loved to have shared posthumously.
Anyway, this is not about me. You are in my thoughts, WWW, very much so. You mention up and down in one of your comments. And so life is ... When coming up from down we appreciate all that's good even more. And your Grand Girl sounds, well, grand. The province of the very young to live with little.
For heaven's sake, and maybe bringing a smile to your face, and please do congratulate me on this "major" achievement, only recently did I dispose of my son's baby teeth (not that they took up much space). When someone suggested I'd make a necklace out of them - I thought to myself: Na, this is creepy.
Big hug,
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Thanks Ursula. It is amazing, this uncovering. I am astonished at the level of whittling, keeping in mind I've downsized twice now already but nature abhorring a vacuum and all that....
DeleteI found your story of your - GG mother very moving, Aladdin's Cave. A good descriptor. That would be my choice if choice there was. But Zen may suit me too, never been Zen but hey....?
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My daughter is moving into her first apartment; we were there last night dropping off the ceremonial "first" things. New starts can be so wonderful. The one thing I will not/cannot give up when my son and I move are my books...I know everybody says they can't and then they do but I don't think I can. They mean so much, more than just paper and spines.
ReplyDeleteYour neighbors sound very kind. Best wishes in your new home!
I thought that about books too Elle, until I moved out of the century home and they wouldn't all fit in a townhouse and a truck took away three truckloads. I remember standing there with Daughter #1 and weeping. But lawdie I can't tell you what they were now :) and libraries, I'm in love with libraries and my Books by Mail out here in the outport.
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Your grandgirl sounds very impressive!
ReplyDeleteOnce you have started there will be no stopping on minimalism. Take it from a veteran.
I need some insight on how you did it. What did you dump and what did you keep and why.
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Biggest was books, I am now almost wholly into Kindle. Next, clothes that I no longer wear. The hardest was to get rid of the sound system and the CDs. Then came the DVDs. Finally, some extra furniture that was cluttering up the place. I did all this within the space that is ear marked as mine at home. My son and daughter in law continue to accumulate, but thankfully do not intrude into my space.
DeleteThanks Ramana. I love hearing how others choose and delete and donate. What sound system do you have now? I trashed my CDs a while back. 8 years. I have iPod and Bose speakers. Tiny system and gorgeous sound.
DeleteThe books are easy.movies not so.much.i have some rare ones and ones that mean a lot.
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I use a small FM radio system that also plays a pendrive. When I don't want to listen to the radio, I can listen to any thing I want stored in pendrives.
DeleteI love the idea of minimalism. We tried very hard to do just that when we moved into a 520 square foot studio in San Francisco. We took just the bare necessities, leaving the rest in our 1300 square foot house in Fresno. I must say, I miss San francisco and that lovely studio, but I love being back with my "stuff" in Fresno. I like my own washer and dryer, a garage in which to park our cars and walk directly into our house, top quality kitchen appliances, and room to move about.
ReplyDeleteWe've still pared down, and we buy very little because we already have so much. Our money is spent on good quality food, books, and trips to see our grandchildren.
You are a great example DKZ but I have to accept the appliances as they are and thrilled we have a laundry and small gym on every floor along with outside BBQ area and patio.
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"the Type A personality has not being paying attention to meditation and OM practices whatsoever."
ReplyDeleteAnd what's up with that? Personally, these things are key, yet I don't do them daily. Why? Why don't I regularly, religiously do what makes all the difference to my state of being? -Kate
We are so human Kate. On the days I do the do, life goes so much better for me. Easy distractions makes me less mindful and present.
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Not sure that minimalist desk would work very well. Wouldn't you need a stepladder to reach the stuff on the top shelves? A good way of getting the maximum storage out of a small space though.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know the move is proceeding well.
Excellent point Nick and also noted there is no room around it for a printer which I use regularly. I think I might have a unit here that will work in the new place.
Delete"Proceeding" is flattering indeed. But snail's pace.
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Hello dear woman, I've been out of the loop for too long! Now I'm home recovering from a total hip replacement and am indulging myself with visits to blogs I've been ignoring. The last year and a half was a blur of pain, me just waiting for this now, and now is here but waiting isn't quite done.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of your townie life to come though your Sprawl is very dear. This is our last year in Labrador. We'll be back to Nova Scotia in the summer of 18, a few years later than our original plan. I will be some glad, I've learned much here and love the wilderness of it, but miss markets, pals, movies, bagels, and my ones. We own a duplex and have recently lost the renters on one side so will live there until the fella gets our new wee hobbit hole made in the village of Prospect. Well enoughcrambling. Will go watch Minimalism now.
Oh Jan I wondered what had happened and now I know, a year of hell, yes we do have those. Mine has been hellish too but my pain levels don't equal yours by any means. Not that I'm comparing. My town life happens fully in September, before then it's bits and pieces and planning. I still have the Inn on the Bay (LOL) for the summer. Needs must as they say.
DeleteKeep in touch. You have my email.
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When you first began to talk about the difficulties in paring down your belongings, you inspired me to get started on our own. I'm lucky in that my brain surgery had such positive and unexpectedly beneficial effects on my stability, but I can never forget how it felt the two years previous to that surgery when my life narrowed and narrowed, and I could not have participated in any paring-down efforts at all. I feel as if I'm defying time and aging for a short bit here, swimming against the current in some weird adaptation of Flowers for Algernon. I wish you well with these efforts to fold your effects into that smaller space so that you can unfold your life in new ways, free of those encumbrances.
ReplyDeleteLinda I've had that sense too when I came close to death and survived. A narrowing and then a slow re holding in a different reality. Changed forever.This time feels very similar. Another chance to get this phase of mine "right".
ReplyDeleteIt's also a great opportunity to review my life and let go with love.
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I loved the suggestion on 333 to get rid of what makes you feel bad. Hoo boy. Yes! https://bemorewithless.com/25/
ReplyDeleteI can't access the minimalist. It's one of my things that I never pay for anything if I can 1.) get it free, or 2.) do without.
The latter.