Pass It On

The forget me nots are for Chile who started a declutter challenge last week that in a weak moment I signed on for. But what the hell does that have to do with eating local food, I keep asking myself?

This is my reasoning -

I've broken the strap on my big black city purse and had it repaired twice because I fill it with farmers' market food and it's already heavy with too much purse stuff. I can fit half a dozen oranges, half a pound of Blue Bottle coffee, a bunch of carrots with their tops intact, a pound of almonds and a bunch of asparagus on top of a library of reading materials and my camera and I'm still chic returning to the office. The purse needs to be decluttered.

And I'm going to can this summer. I don't know how but that doesn't matter. What matters is the pantry shelves are full. With stuff. It's got to go to make room.

Which leads to the kitchen cupboards that are full with a lot of kitchen stuff that I needed when I didn't cook. Now that I cook I need some different stuff, primarily some room to put stuff.

But I can't throw any of it away. Right? I've got to find the perfect home for it, all that pretty cluttery stuff.

For years I've been saving a stack of chipped fiesta ware plates for someone who does mosaics. I pictured a pastel bird bath, matching pots. Does anyone do that anymore? I doubt it.

Avoiding the kitchen I have however passed on a bag of books to the local meditation center that sends them to the Insight Prison Project. It's a start.

My long standing way to get rid of items I no longer need is to put them on the sidewalk in a brown bag with FREE written really big on it. I put the bag out early in the morning and it's generally gone by noon. Sometimes one item goes at a time, other times the entire bag at once. I never put out more than one lightly filled bag though. Sidewalk merchandising, I suppose, but then it's not junk and I don't want to put it out there like it is.

My hope is that the next person who gets the stuff can share the appreciation I had or simply have their own. And if not, that they pass it on too.