Away We Go: Possession, Part One

Possessions are tricky things. They are dear enough to enter the space where we spend the majority of our alive hours whether they reside in homes, offices, or transportation. They require management - there’s care and feeding of your stuff.

The decisions are numerous: where to put it, how important is it to my daily weekly or monthly routine. How close do I want this thing to where I work, sleep, recreate, bathe.

Hidden is the responsibility. With great possession comes great responsibility and managing those possessions sucks more mental energy than I ever realized before I divested myself of most of them. Even the comparatively small number of things we fit in our trailer seems too much sometimes.

What I possess possesses me. The trick is that things have an odd amount of power. I move among them all day, thinking about the toothbrush that should be put away, the dish in the wrong place, the keys strewn where they should not be. I own these things but they take so much energy away. I could be in deep thought, deep work, ascertaining what is actually around me instead of whether I need it and then what to do with it.

My relationship with myself is more evident when I don’t spend as much time thinking about things. When I go into the wild and am surrounded by sand and rock and plants, I am not considering what I should do with them and whether or not that stone would be better an inch to the left. I am thinking - my, what a lovely configuration. What a spectacular sunset. What an astonishing pattern of footprints.

Making peace with my external surroundings turns out to be the way to move both outside and inside of myself. I can actually listen to the wisest voice of all. The one inside of me. She gets a whole lot louder when she's not drowned out by dishes in the sink. Even if I actually like those dishes. Even if I love them, their management still distracts me from the real work of being alive.

I never realized how much of my time I spend doing things out of pure obligation and no actual desire to do. I like having clean spaces but I don't like coming in after people have disrespected that space by leaving their things behind. I really don't want to wear skinny jeans but think I probably should so as not to appear a total moron. I really enjoy running but sometimes really, really slowly with a bunch of walking in between. But that things-voice says that I am not good enough unless I run the whole time and faster and god why aren’t you better at this by now. It’s the same one that says clothes on the floor will be judged and I will be found wanting.

I’ve moved mountains of things to take my leave of our home. Taking those I don't use, don't even want, haven't been attached to in years to the trash or the dumpster or given to people who I hope will remember me when they use whatever it is. Sometimes putting things out on the curb and watching those with whom I have no relationship cart them away.

I feel so much lighter without. Which turns against the capitalist equivalence of possession to worth. It’s ingrained in so many aspects of the way we live.

But I’m not so sure about that, buster. Less to care about can mean more capacity for the good kind of care.

This is written from a position of extraordinary privilege. I have not lost my home on someone else’s timeline. I have the luxury to re-buy something if I need to. More on this coming in Possession, Part Two.

Inspired by events in the Mojave Desert, California.