海角大神

My mother has a dining room table that no one has seen for nearly 20 years, though it sits right in the middle of her dining room.聽

This is because for 20 years she鈥檚 used it as a cross between an archive and a landfill, burying it beneath ever-accumulating and occasionally landsliding heaps of paper 鈥� magazines, newsletters, bills, bank statements, coupons, concert stubs, birthday cards, articles, advertisements, copies of itineraries for vacations she took back in the 1990s, and baby pictures of grandchildren who are now paying off college loans. You could take a core sample from any quadrant of that table and have a complete geological record of the past two decades of my mother鈥檚 life.聽

I can relate. I鈥檝e moved 23 times in 38 years, and though you鈥檇 think this would teach me to travel light, each move has instead been a notch up on an ever-increasing gradient of complexity, especially as I transitioned from house-renter to homeowner, single to married. The sheer gross tonnage of my possessions has correspondingly increased.聽

Things simply have a way of piling up wherever they encounter a stationary object, like leaves blown against a fence, and a house is a stationary object, even if it鈥檚 a mobile home. Most wandering people travel light, living in tents and on saddles, and their primary possessions 鈥� herds 鈥� move by themselves.

My brother Ross and I recently flew to New York to pay my mother a visit 鈥� at the time I was preparing to move yet again 鈥� and I was confronted, once again, with the evidence that my mother is the block off which I am a chip. On our first night there, Ross and I couldn鈥檛 help noticing the heaving mounds of rummage where her dining room table used to be.

鈥淢om, why don鈥檛 we go through all that stuff and clear it out?鈥� Ross said.聽

鈥淥h, no no no no no no no...,鈥� my mother said. 鈥淣o. Uh-uh. Don鈥檛 touch it.鈥澛�

The next afternoon, when she couldn鈥檛 find a bill she may or may not have paid, Ross suggested it might be entombed somewhere in the dining room and that perhaps we should have a look at what鈥檚 there. 鈥淏esides,鈥� he said, 鈥渁ll those piles are clearly stressing you out. Why suffer anymore?鈥� My mother only let out a long worried groan, cast a cowed glance in the direction of the dining room, and shook her head. 鈥淎re you boys hungry?鈥�

But on our last night there, my mother walked up to us with a small stack of unopened mail, which she had wrested from the glacial creep at the western edge of the dining room table, and said, 鈥淗elp me go through this.鈥澛�

鈥淪ure,鈥� I said as nonchalantly as possible. When we鈥檇 succeeded in separating wheat from chaff, I said, 鈥淲ell, that鈥檚 one less thing to worry about. Want to knock off another little stack? If it鈥檚 too upsetting, we can just stop.鈥澛�

My mother led the way, walking into the dining room the way an animal trainer might enter a cage with tigers in it. Ross and I came in behind her and, after a moment鈥檚 collective pause, he reached for a stack on one side of the table.聽

鈥淣o!鈥� my mother said sharply, then softened. 鈥淟et鈥檚 start at the other end. That鈥檚 where the older stuff is.鈥澛�

In exactly one hour, we made our way through that entire landscape of litter, my mother continually shaking her head and saying, 鈥淲hy did I keep all this? What was I thinking?鈥� We tossed 95 percent of it into paper shopping bags, a dozen of them, and when I asked what she wanted us to do with them, she surprised us all by saying, 鈥淧ut it in the incinerator.鈥澛�

When I returned from that mission, I found her leaning reverently over the newly excavated dining room table, whose surface she had literally not seen in two decades. She had a bottle of glass cleaner in one hand and a paper towel in the other, and was massaging the tabletop.聽

鈥淚 forgot how beautiful this table is,鈥� she said.聽

When I returned home, inspired if not sobered by the visit with my mother (and in preparation for moving, again), I waded through my own accumulated piles, garbage bags at the ready. I sold or gave away half my possessions, and moved into a smaller house. And though it was surprisingly untraumatic to downsize 鈥� and it certainly made moving cheaper and easier 鈥� the act of simplifying was still a kind of chaos for me, the same way slowing down can be boat-rocking for those used to living at fever-pitch.聽

But if you鈥檙e standing at the edge of a cliff, progress can be defined as taking a step backward.