flotsam and jetsam

i’m contemplating the luxury of time. and how i’ve recently been moving through my days based on my own timelines and whims. getting loads done, but in no logically discernible order. i am finding joy in the small quiet places: in the baking of bread, the folding of laundry, plant propagation. embracing the long nights, lighting fires and scented candles, whilst also eagerly awaiting the return of the long summer days. not for the first time i consider gifting myself the lofty title of chatelaine. this appeals to my sense of humour (our house is very small!).

i am feeling the need to clear things out. to develop a new blueprint of the space we inhabit. to let the incoming tide pick up the excess flotsam and jetsam of our lives and carry them away to another shore—a place where someone else can discover their richness, enjoy their beauty and put them to use. i don’t want to add things in the space they leave, but to leave it empty so we can breathe more freely. compared to some places, our house is not cluttered. but i still notice things previously gathered that i’m now unwilling to pay the second price for.

Thought-provoking short read on what “stuff” costs: Everything must be paid for twice // “One financial lesson they should teach in school is that most of the things we buy have to be paid for twice. There’s the first price, usually paid in dollars, just to gain possession of the desired thing, whatever it is: a book, a budgeting app, a unicycle, a bundle of kale. But then, in order to make use of the thing, you must also pay a second price. This is the effort and initiative required to gain its benefits, and it can be much higher than the first price.”

today i take drop off donations at a local store. finding, whilst i’m there, a small jar that comes home with me — a bargain (free) rescued from landfill that will assume the role of “keeper of the weekly batch of habanero chutney”. this piece of someone’s former life is one i am happy to pay the second price for.