Summer had definitely ended and we were down to the last week in our van. In May we hit the mainland and visited Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah and Nevada. We enjoyed 30 degrees and 100 degrees, thunderstorms, hail storms, smokey haze and crystal clear blue skies, river-wading moose, hungry grizzlies, bike rides and hikes, family dinners and sunsets.
Back to Oregon we went to visit more family and store the van at Marty's mom's house. But that's not all we left there. Sure, we call ourselves minimalists but how do we account for the 12 Ikea cubes of nuts and bolts, paperwork, college texts books, 3D printing filament, wetsuits, and who knows what else shoved under the bed in the spare bedroom?
In the four months since we covertly carried our excess upstairs, we’d already forgotten what was so important that we had to hold onto it. Don’t get me wrong. Marty’s mom is hardly the minimalist police. But for some reason Marty didn’t want her to know he was such a pack rat. I’m loathe to use the word “hoarder” because we all picture appalling tv shows. But wouldn’t we all agree there are degrees? While having several sets of dishes might feel appropriate for one person, more than a spork and a bowl is profusely extravagant to another.
Marty thinks it’s fine for his mom to have a farmhouse full (very full) of 20+ years of life. But for some reason he feels that because we sold everything to live our lives differently, it’s embarrassing to have more stuff than will fit in a van. I, on the other hand, find it embarrassing that I had to wait until his mom was taking a nap before I could lug the cubes up to their hiding place.
So we’ve determined to go through the cubes and get rid of as much as we can. Will we confess our sins of omission to his mom? Since she rarely ventures up the stairs these days, probably not. Will we feel like minimalist imposters until it’s all gone, definitely.
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