Macaroni and cheese on top of a baked potato with a side order of toast

Followed by a Spaghetti-O bath...

The Therapeutic Spaghetti-Os Bath

Look at me. Can you tell I have lost thirty pounds? Because, if you can’t, to hell with it, I am going out right now for a dinner of macaroni and cheese … on top of a baked potato … with a side order of toast.

It took months of paying attention, but as it turns out, there are only two simple rules for weight loss: 1.) Eat less 2.) Exercise more. Period. How easy is that?

Where can I buy THIS scale?

I have gone through my clothing, sorted most of it into neat piles, stuffed it carefully into bags and donated it to a charity shop. My closet looks empty now, by comparison, but I won’t be replacing anything. I have seven blouses, four pairs of trousers and a few t-shirts. Does anyone my age, living in a mobile home park, need more clothing than that? I think not. I notice my remaining wardrobe is, for the most part, made up of plaid flannel, denim and orthopedic oxfords. It is the lumber-jack look. Dressing up appears to be nowhere in my future.

So, yes. My closet looks lovely now – lean, orderly, sane. I am feeling somewhat lean, orderly and sane myself, relatively speaking. In fact, I am so inspired by this major deaccession, that I have emptied out the other closet, as well — the one that was filled with all the meaningless flotsam collected by an older single woman. I have really taken to this thorough letting go of the ‘fetters of material existence’. I have cleaned out the desk and all the drawers and the linen cabinet. Things are flying out of this house by the box load. And I am going to keep this momentum going. NEXT: kitchen cupboards, bathroom cupboards, the shed! (The shed? Seriously?)

Family photo collections before smart phones

And this is what I realize:

When my days have ended, my son will come into my house and look around, and be surprised to see that he can have everything cleared out of here in two days. It may, in fact, be one of my greatest gifts to my boy – his inheritance being not the foolish mountains of detritus that parents usually leave behind, but rather just a bit of pocket money and a handful of memories.

Finger paints made from corn starch, food coloring and water. We were poor, maybe, but well entertained.

He will find a small box of his childhood things: his Alaskan beaded moccasins, his original 3rd grade stories that begin with “Once a Pond a Time”, letters he wrote to me when he was nine, finger paintings he created during one especially long, rainy winter in Santa Cruz when we were hippies and didn’t own a television. He will discover his middle school report cards (“He never stops talking.”) and the very cool red-rimmed glasses he wore throughout junior high. Just a box of childhood things that his mother treasured, a time-capsule of his young life and a testimony to how much and how long he was loved.

Now, as for that macaroni, baked potato, and toast debacle? That Spaghetti-Os bath? Just kidding. I still have thirty pounds to go, and with a little bit of tenacity, apparently, miracles do happen.