Watercolors and Beaded Pouch

Day 328: Watercolors and Beaded Pouch

The end is near. Thirty-seven days and counting. I find myself often contemplating the final seven days of the stuff project, a scant month from now. What have I learned? What has changed?

It hasn't been what I anticipated. For starters, I imagined that the entire theme of the year would center around saying goodbye to Emma as she left home and entered the next phase of her life. That part has been so much easier than I imagined, partly because she's doing so well, and partly because she's not really gone. Between texting, and calling, and Facebook, and visits every couple of months, she's still part of my every day life, but minus some of the frictions of cohabitation.

I thought it would be a lot harder to find 365 things I don't need or want. Like today. This watercolor set and the little beaded purse have gone unnoticed in a drawer, even after 328 days of scourging. I don't even know what the white elastic thing that was with the other things is. No one would call our house spare, even today.

I am aware of my desire for stuff now in the way that meditation makes me aware of my breathing.

Has it changed me? Has it changed my house, or my family, or the way I use things? I'm thinking about it.