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Moving is stressful. For a neat freak like me, having my apartment turned inside out is extremely unsettling even though it also creates opportunities to do a massive purge. The other day I couldn’t reach a lock box on the top shelf of my closet so I pulled out the step ladder, hopped up, and immediately rammed my head into the doorframe. I iced it right away and managed to avoid a bump but found it telling that I hurt myself by blindly reaching for something I don’t use or need. One of the things I like least about being an author is selling books but a few years ago, I was vending enough to make a lock box necessary. That’s what this move is making me realize—I have held onto things that no longer serve me. I’m going through my files now and finally threw out the essays I read in graduate school and the writing lesson plans I developed for kids over a decade ago. A poet friend sent a lovely video she made with her husband at the seashore and it ended with the hashtag #imagineblackfreedom. What does it mean to be free? My head hurts and I have more packing to do so I won’t try to answer that question now. But it’s hard to move forward if you haven’t taken time to imagine what it would be like to be free. I watched my favorite real estate show yesterday and for the first time, it made me want to walk out of this house with nothing but an overnight bag. I love beautiful things and enjoy being surrounded by them. I want to buy a condo but I don’t want to fill it with more stuff…I’ve lived nearly half a century and my achievements can’t be measured with things—my books count, of course, but very little else is precious to me. I keep my great-grandparents’ fancy china in the cupboard—I haven’t used it once since my mother gave it to me years ago. I could give it to a cousin or I could commit to using it at least once a month. My desire for a simple life isn’t probably isn’t compatible with my magpie eye for pretty, shiny things. I made the above sign almost twenty years ago and it has been on my fridge all that time—maybe I should let it go and make another that reflects how I see myself now. Tomorrow I’ll have to make another trip to the Goodwill donation center. I’m going to try to find enough quarters to do a final load of laundry, though the pandemic coin shortage makes that tricky. On Friday I took some cookies to my favorite clerk at the post office and sympathized with her fear that the service is being sabotaged by the current administration. We have to plan carefully—NOW—so that we can maneuver around the many obstacles being placed across the path to freedom. And I can’t be agile if I’m weighed down with too much stuff. Time to let it go…