Recycling

Recycling

Despite setting up a bunch of appointments this morning and going to noon yoga with Edy the house has a definite echo in it since we returned LLL to Austin yesterday. A week of 6 year old energy, loving times and activities leaves a void when it’s unplugged from the scene. I don’t like to talk about it (thus the busy-ness) but eventually it’s there and I drop into the ….ugh, missing.

As mentioned, we had a great afternoon at the butterfly house while LLL was here and it’s a pretty fascinating exhibit. About 2500 fluttering bodies at all times recycled every day to the tune of about 10%. They have a “staff” Iguana who I feel is part of the recycling team as he looks quite healthy.

This time through the exhibit I had 2 songs in my head as I remembered they only have two weeks to emerge from their cocoons and “live” before going off to the recycling department. The fact that they can do whatever they want except lay fertile eggs seems a bit “Roman” if you get my drift, but $4 admission fees dictate that that is the way it is and the FDA also has a say.  Edy pointed out that “emerging” from a cocoon into a butterfly has lost a bit of its Zen appeal after these visits and I have to agree. Actually, I feel a sense of urgency now that is quite new.

Over the past decade I have divested practically all I have accumulated over the previous decades. All the treasures and important items I held on to for their value have been shown to be of little value if any in the real world. At one point in Taos I could not even give away 40 cases of Architectural books, so I recycled them at the dump. Sad. Today I took a bunch of art to a guy and recycled it into his collections. I then took a couple hundred designer ties to Good Will and recycled them into the new emerging butterflies of businessmen venturing out into the world. There has been so much that has been let go of, it is mind boggling at times.

The ties were a bigger deal than the “ga-zillion dollar art” I’ve released back into circulation. I did not get it at the time but there was a lot of grieving that went into letting those items in particular go. Each tie represented a new project or event I bought each one for specifically. I had certain stores in certain cities all over North America I would go to for the most unique and “special” tie I could find. With each of those projects and events came a dream that if I kept my shoulder to the grindstone all the success and security in the world would be at my fingertips and smooth sailing would soon be at hand. Of course it never happened that way and the next lead to the next ….next….etc…..

I had a friend who used to say that "in the end everything is rented".

"OK, I’ll buy that", but today I got a bit clearer on exactly what my particular rental agreement was all about. I feel that, sure you can rent it as long as it brings you pleasure and joy but when it leads to anything that smells like it’s there to “fix” something or  to maintain some kind of perfume of the past, then it’s time to pass it on and recycle it to someone else who can re-enjoy it and leave me free to dream new dreams with a bigger container for the future.

Even if it's for two more weeks, I'm flying my #$# off and listenening to Marvin G as much as possible.