NY1, NY2, MVY

There are a plethora of white papers taped to various piles around the house marked either NY1, NY2, or MVY--Martha's Vineyard. Drawers are being emptied, streamlined, and marked for either of the three eventualities. As of this writing, we will have three nights left in this house. The weather here is fittingly gloomy with the marine layer that keeps the sun from appearing, the closest thing to weather we experience in the spring and summer months. Everything in our lives is being overhauled to fit into boxes, reduced to absolute necessities. And what I'm discovering is that there is a certain liberation in compacting your life to fit inside something easily transported. That four drawer filing cabinet, each drawer begging to be filled with useless, worthless papers, is now in two portable file boxes. Imagine, four large drawers reduced to two! All of this work to reduce has gotten me thinking about the way we live today in our culture of hyper-consumption. Do we really need, not just one, but two garlic presses? Or four sets of measuring spoons? What compels us to surround ourselves with so much stuff, sh**t, crap? Is it to stave off the emotional voids, as if the purchase of that label maker will somehow make the isolation, loneliness go away, even if briefly?

Yes, I own a label maker, although I've never gotten beyond typing in four letter expletives, printing them out, which I found endlessly amusing. Quickly, I had a neat pile of these labels on my desk until I realized how insane this would look to anyone other people, so my half hour amusement ended up buried in the bottom of my trash can. The label maker went the way of most things meant to make our lives easier, getting tucked into some drawer never to be fully utilized. As a writer, I have no shortage of writing tools, all meant to help in my work. I've uncovered a desk drawer of pens, unopened; endless notebooks of varying sizes with half-filled pages of ideas or lines. Again, how does one accumulate so much? I suppose that's a quandary worth contemplating versus so many other disasters that could befall a person.

I did bake a few more goodies yesterday. The idea of not baking in this kitchen propelled me to churn out some coconut cakes and a chocolate Bundt cake. Now, I will spend the rest of the day distributing my goodies and bid 'adieu' to my neighbors.