The Queen is in full bloom. She hiked up to her mountain with Prince Pepe leading the way and proclaimed to the mountain, “Let freedom reign!” For all her work as the High Priestess has prepared her for now. All the trials and errors, all the struggles, indeed they have made her strong, courageous and powerful. She has listened well to her mermaid, half-fish, half-goat-with-wings guide.
The Queen is very unhappy about things that are going on in the village outside the kingdom. That little children and women and the elderly and the disabled are getting the shaft, while the Evil Vampire Empire sucks the life out of the people. The Queen has learned to rid herself of the chains that she was unaware of all her life. She cleaned out the castle of excess stuff that was planted by the Vampires. She got rid of its draining power. And even though sir-Fraud, the ex-king, still tries to rip her of her crown jewels, she doesn’t care. For those things are of the earth, all of it is. She’ s OK to let every THING go, because she is all the more powerful because of it, and she has the blue jewel from the Princess in her crown and she knows where those came from and how to get more. Prince Pepe winks in agreement.
I filled my Prius with two loads of donations and drove it to Savers down the hill. It benefits children’s and epilepsy center charities. They were so glad to have all this stuff, the so-called rewards of capitalism – books, clothing, household items, art work, things.
I had a garage sale last weekend. I think I put out two-thirds of what I owned. So much of it was still from my life with my late husband’s, believe it or not. I set it up cute, like a funky re-sale shop – an eclectic mix of antiques, funky women’s clothes, furniture and odds and ends, a lot of intellectual books – John Donne poetry, photojournalism books, plants, art books, best short stories for the decade of the 90s books. I put out my antique camera, box and doll collections. I called it La Boheme – funky, thrifty, chic.
I put out my late husband’s cuff links. About 15 sets, I had stored them at the Arvada house and picked them up last time when I was showing the rental property managers the place. I saved the silver ones, and Hondo picked out a couple to remember his father by. One that said “hot” and “cold,” like little faucets and another that had Roman coins on them.
My son is selling his air rifles, because he wants the money. I never thought he’d do that, and I definitely don’t want to export these arms! We are leaving weapons of mass destruction in America!
Friday was brisk. People picking through stuff like crows in the field. There were lots of early birds. People said I had great stuff. I saw my whole life in things spread around the garage and driveway. I knew I was letting go of heavy chains.
It was busy in the morning, and a guy almost walked off with the Romeo y Julieta Cuban cigar in a nice metal container that my son wanted to keep of his father’s and I had forgotten to put way. People who were artists really liked my art. I had it spread out like a gallery in the living room among the plants for sale. A lady liked the Polaroid transfers I did and thought about purchasing them. I told her how they don’t even make Polaroid anymore, or are trying to bring it back. And that it’s a Sydney Solis and will be very valuable one day! But she didn’t come back. People didn’t go for the antiques or the $200 bronze Buddha that I bought for $90 in a funky San Francisco shop in 1996. I’ll just keep it and store it.
A thin, tall elderly man with a slight slouch came in and asked about antiques. Something told me about “dealer,” so I thought, “goody, I may be able to get a good price on some things!” He was interested in the Curtis prints, and we talked about the stage house books that used to be on West Pearl before The Kitchen restaurant moved in. I purchased them there with my late husband. He said the owner is now dead. I showed him my mother’s dolls. Old things from Bohemia and my grandmother, and a doll from the 50s replete with silk stockings and pierced ears!
He liked the Queen Mary passenger lists and luncheon menus from 1955. When he balked at my price I said, “Well, it was my mother’s,” and that I would use them for art. I like the 1950s designs, interesting print and text and since it’s paper and I’m a publisher I wanted to keep it. He said to look at the signature on the back of the card, John G. Gould. I could barely make it out, from Rowayton, Conn. So I’ll Google it and investigate it. Somehow we got to talking that his wife had died recently, and you could see he was still cut up about it. We talked a while about death, attachment, life. I shared with him my husband’s death. I told him about the Hospice of Boulder and how important it is to get grief counseling.
In the end I kept everything because he didn’t want to give me much money, but I did sell him three Ray Charles albums that were my late husband’s for $10. They had great graphics and were probably worth a lot more on E-bay or something. But I parted with them. Practicing non-attachment and good will. (Although that gets me into trouble, a la ex-husband fraud, but I surrender and give it away anyway. And I go back to using Raja yoga to nix any negativity associated with those thoughts!)
Then there was the man from Vietnam who liked my Wyang Kulit puppet that I got from a second grade class I used to tell stories at as a Spellbinder volunteer storyteller. He didn’t want to give me much for it so I figured I’d use it professionally eventually and kept it. Ok, so I keep a few good things! We got to talking about all the stuff and the American system. He said, “Every country is corrupt. But in Vietnam, people get to live and be happy. But in the states, people are not so happy, and they have to participate in the corruption.” He said how Vietnam wasn’t stupid and get mired in debt like a lot of countries and have all this consumption and hooked up to the corporate machine. He said in Vietnam, guns are illegal, there aren’t fat kids and nobody has a lawn. “Lawns and fat kids. What is that all about?” he asked. I have no idea, I said. And dreamed of the yoga eco farm I’m visiting in Argentina soon and can't wait for my son to learn eco-building and my daughter is dying to learn to sew.
Another woman came by who said, “I heard there was a woman who was selling beautiful clothes at a garage sale.” I told her about my going to Buenos Aires. To seek out economically and environmentally sustainable living and to give my children a global education. She told me about all the loser men she had dated in life. I said I know all about that! But now she was married to a nice guy, but who was a perfectionist and didn’t like to travel and do adventurous things. I said she should just go anyways! But something seemed to hold her back and she talked about how she had these perfect parents who loved each other, and I said maybe her bad past relationships and marriage were compensatory because of that fact. We looked around at my different clothing I had for sale, including a vintage dress. We talked and looked at clothes for her for a long time. In the end she didn't buy anything. After she left, my daughter said, “She needs therapy!”
Saturday was disappointing and very slow. I just listed things on Craigslist and wrote comments online to articles in the Denver Post and Wall Street Journal. I have the Prius listed and am excited to be car-free, as I think about the British Petroleum holocaust happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now. Seeing the fragile wings of spiders and dragonflies dipped in oil, as well as the oil's blackness staining the wings of white pelicans gave me the horrible feeling that this struck at the very heart of life and the survival of Mother Earth. So I can no longer participate in this. How free money and credit and dollar reserves suck other peoples and nations dry of their resources. We are the Romans all over again, there's no doubt about it. And how the privileged classes do anything to preserve their way of life!
I realize that my humble childhood, as crazy as it was, had good intentions. My parents weren’t into status and hoarding money, but what it could bring in the ways of education, experience and artistic expression. My late husband, Frank, always made me feel shame that I shopped in second-hand stores, but he didn’t realize that’s where my style and originality came from. My mother taught me the original thrift. But he taught me to get trapped in the white man’s game, squandering the earth’s resources on things. I remember my son as a child. Frank insisted he be dressed in Tommy Hilfiger. While at Fiesta a man walked by me as I held my son in my arms, who was dressed head to toe in it. A man walked by and said, “Hello, Jr. Mint.” I remember a woman who was one of my husband’s clients who said, “You get to drive around in a Mercedes!” I looked at her fake boobs and wasn’t sure how to explain to her the embarrassment I felt when I drove up to my job as an English as a Second Language tutor at a poor school. I really just need some transportation to do my work. I don’t need an identity. But my husband needed otherwise, as a Hispanic trying to make it in the white man’s world. His mother bought him his first suit at 18 and said, “You’re my little dividend.” And somehow my husband convinced me that my way was wrong. "This is how people live!" he'd exclaim in our starter castle that he got for a good price because the builder was hurting. And I figured, "I guess it is." And that's how they do it. How they hypnotized us all into the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all. The American Way.
But what a lie our culture makes us believe, that these things give us any worth beyond our own being and divine center. Growing a tomato, working with my hands, educating my children, that is what is most valuable and worthy of time. It's all so simple, and our world is so complex. People are so stressed, pulled in so many directions. I feel it too. But it’s all coming down now. What a lie. The stock market is tanking, or artificially manipulated every evening to bounce back up. And we keep buying into the illusion. But now the gig is up. The whole outer world just falls away. You can’t hold on to anything! And the best part about it is that when you do lose everything, you do gain yourself. And that is worth it.
I had so much left over that I thought about having a sale the next Saturday too. Eventually I ruled against it, thinking, "It's not worth it!" I have so much more to get rid of and donate. What I don't get rid of, I simply will pack and store. This has been an extra deep cleaning by the Queen. Her house is cleaner by the day, and all the lighter for it. There is nothing but art work in my house and furniture now. I gave most of the plants to my father. It's bare bones. It's an incredible psychic lightness, this cleaning effect. My daughter said, "We should have lived this way all along!" So we shall. It's never to late to start!
