Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and Other Books

Day 303: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and Other Books

This is the time of year when our fantasies about the next ten years kick into high gear. Coming back from Florida to the prospect of months of bitter cold is never easy, especially for my southern man. But even in summer, we are always thinking. Emma seems successfully launched, Sam is leaving for college soon. Where shall we spend the next ten years of our working lives? The possibilities are many. Sell our expensive Burns Park house and buy a similar house outright in Ypsilanti, and a property on the water out in the country to go with it. Skip the Ypsi house and buy just a property on the water out in the country, with not too much of a commute. Move to a warmer climate, Gainesville or San Luis Obispo or Tacoma. Or what about Costa Rica?

Or perhaps we want to stay in this house until they carry us out, feet first. In that case, what would we do? Install a fireplace? Run a small business out of the studio? Build an attached garage with a short driveway right off the living room? Install a kitchen and bathroom in the studio and rent it out? The possibilities are endless.

All of these fantasies capture the mind like an iMax movie. And these fantasies about moving away make me realize something: that the question of what to get rid of is very different from the question of what to keep.

When you're deciding what to get rid of, you want to keep the little candleholder your daughter gave you ten years ago, and the novel on the top shelf that you've never read but might someday, and the bone china cocoa set that once belonged to your grandmother (the one that's missing a saucer), and every hand-knitted doll your mother made whether the kids played with it or not, and the watercolor you bought at the Humane Society fundraiser your niece organized, and the Star Wars Trivial Pursuit your son might want to give to his boy someday, and the six basketballs that bounce at different heights, and the crappy guitar that looks good hanging on the wall, and the old beat-up recliners that are still comfortable to sit in, and the Mr. Beer! that you still might use to make that pale ale recipe someday.

If the question is instead, "What should I keep?" - if, for example, you were moving to a smaller house in Ypsilanti, or a smaller house in the woods, or a smaller house in Florida - you might not keep any of these things.

You might, perhaps, be able to get rid of one thing, every day for two years.

Or three.