How attached are you to your stuff? What do your physical possessions say about you? Is it easy for you to let go of things that no longer serve you?

If there’s one thing this lockdown has done for us all, it’s given us plenty of time to be in our own environment. During normal times, most of us are on the go so much we barely have time to pay attention, let alone dial in our homes and personal space to the degree we might like.

With a slow-rolling pandemic in progress, however, things are much different. Your new commute is likely no further than the distance from your kitchen to the Zoom Room on your computer. A change of scenery is when you trek from your front steps to your back yard or patio.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes an item or object that’s in your everyday field of view will become invisible? Somehow the force of inertia can act like a cloaking field to your vision and something that was randomly set down somewhere will cease to make any impression at all, ‘blending into the woodwork’ as the expression goes.

And yet every item that we surround ourselves with, either at random and by default or consciously and intentionally, exerts a palpable degree of pressure on our psyche. It’s as if every single thing in our personal environment really does have a string attached. Learning how to make a practice out of cutting loose the clutter is one of the great secrets of moving lightly through life.

As a wordsmith, I’m quite familiar with the process of editing. Paring down prose to either fit in a given space or have maximum impact with minimum fluff is second nature. When it comes to my personal belongings, not so much. I find it easier to accumulate things than to part with them. This pandemic lockdown has given me some much-needed time to exercise one of my favorite clutter-clearing mantras – love it, use it, or lose it.

I don’t recall where I picked that little phrase up from, but the message is simple. If there’s something in your environment that you neither love nor use, then what’s the excuse for keeping it? “Oh, but I really was planning on taking up mosaics one of these days when I find the time.” Well, if this pandemic hasn’t cleared your schedule enough to finally get around to it, perhaps it was never meant to be and you can get rid of the boxes of broken tiles once and for all. Some half-baked dreams are meant to be discarded.

Gary, my older half-brother who divides his time between Alaska and Hawaii is fond of “clearing stuff out.” Last time he was here he helped me in my garage and garden and remarked that “you think you need all of this junk but once it’s gone you forget all about it!”

George, my 93-yr-old Dad is also big on simplicity. When my Mom passed away back in 2011, he released his hold on at least 90% of their shared knick-knacks and tchotchkes. His motto is “simplify” so he keeps it clean in his little cottage in his retirement village in Oregon. An avid reader, he’s grateful that his local library has an online checkout process and curbside pickup for books.

In my experience, there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who see any open surface as a place just waiting to accumulate stuff, and those who prefer a clear space ready for an activity. That may be an oversimplification, but you can see where I’m going with this. It’s analogous to the age-old question of whether someone’s glass is half-full or half-empty.

When I lived in Denver for several years back in the 80’s we were fond of walking through the network of alleys and doing what we called “dumpster diving.” It never ceased to amaze us what an incredible variety of seemingly-valuable items were there for the scavenging. One could furnish and decorate a cheap apartment all the way to the rafters.

All good, until it was time to move. That’s when the dreaded affliction of ‘accumulitus’ would rear its ugly head. After some years of random gathering, I realized that I would either have to curtail the habit or open a junkyard. Thankfully, I chose the former, and learned through the years that “three moves is as good as a fire.”

With this pandemic pinning you down it’s a good time to reevaluate your nest and do some personal editing. Getting rid of stuff is easier than you might think, thanks to sites like Craigslist and NextDoor. With local recycling centers shut due to the lockdown simply dumping stuff isn’t an option, but posting a ‘curb alert’ makes things disappear like magic.

As you’re dancing around in your Living Zoom, ask yourself just what can you add or release to improve your room! This pandemic brings priorities into sharp relief and is a monstrous metaphor for many things, not the least of which is cleaning house. If you can emerge in ‘the after time’ with a lighter load you’ll be grateful.

Much love and many thanks, may you have great health and vitality in the week ahead!

Till next Monday,

M+

Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine