Writing about a potpourri of ponderings. Follow me on Mastodon!

Write about it

Recently, I have been trying to live more intentionally in this life. One part of that is looking at the things I own and determining if it is worth it for me to keep them. As Marie Kondo might ask, do they “spark joy?” As far as I know, this is still the main thrust of the minimalism movement.

I go back and forth on whether I feel comfortable and happy with more or less stuff. Minimalism has obvious strengths, but weaknesses too. I want to explore the topic more in a future post. For now, I wanted to share an idea I had.

I have a box full of little things that I don’t really want to keep, but also seem valuable. I was trying to figure out what to do with them, when I happened across a page in Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. One chapter is about how writers write about the ordinary, about things other people rarely pay attention to. They have the fresh eyes of a tourist in an ordinary place.

This gave me the idea to write about each of the items/trinkets in a way that gives them some dignity and integrity before donating or discarding them. Perhaps a paragraph and a portrait will consecrate the object in the disposable world we struggle in. Who knows, we’ll see how it goes!


Day 28 of the #100DaysToOffload challenge, in the books!