A Pilgrim's Progress

In the early 1990s, a popular billboard seen on Houston freeways advertising the Houston Chronicle classifieds pictured a twenty-something guy, lotus position, and the slogan, FOR SALE—ALL MY EARTHLY POSSESSIONS. As I prepared to leave for a trip to northern New Mexico that summer, this billboard was on my mind, and I thought, “One of these days….” Actually I longed—longed for something I couldn’t define, but the longing felt like the lifting of a heavy, heavy weight from my shoulders. That must have been 20 years ago--long enough for a child to have been born and enter early adulthood; two decades, five presidential elections; lots and lots of changes.

In the barn I call home in Texas is stored a large Rubbermaid tub full of the leftovers of a series of t-shirts I had designed over the few seasons that I gathered with a small group of other like-minded people for a little antiques market in Fayetteville, Texas. This market happened twice annually during the season that is generally known as Round Top, one of the largest and best known antiques markets in the U.S.

FOR SALE—ALL MY EARTHLY POSSESSIONS read those t-shirts. What had begun as a heartfelt and gut-felt response to a billboard some 10 years earlier made its way onto clothing for anyone to take notice of. Frankly, I don’t think many people did notice it. Maybe that’s a merely complicated reflection of the mentality that grips our consumer-oriented world. Some did get it, though, and commented, smiling, “I love your t-shirt”. Some even wanted to buy one—ode to buying something.

At the heart of the billboard advertisement, the t-shirts, the stories reported in the media about the people who sell off everything, by choice, to lighten their load and put things in to some supposedly better perspective—better, at least, it seems for those who make such choices—is a longing to get to our center. We all have at least an inkling of what our center is. It’s where our heart lies, it’s one of the chakras, it is God, the Divine, the Source. During times of natural disaster, people who lose their homes and what many would consider everything important poignantly offer thanks that the lives of family and neighbor have been spared. That’s what matters.

For the better part of six years—since shortly after our mother died in 2007—I have been back and forth with myself over letting go of an accumulation of stuff—hoarding may be the definition of some, but it’s not Post cereal boxes. How do you let go of stuff, regardless of its value? In the meantime, I have actually increased my holdings while letting go of some of the material goods I have that are worth something to someone else of my ilk. One way of changing our landscape is to put our stuff before the public en masse and hope for the very best. And finally, that is what I have done. The auction was September 15, 2012, on the eve of my 69th birthday. As I write, I know only the preliminary results of this auction. Some of the prices fetched were way more than I had anticipated. Other prices were painfully low. But it’s done. Yesterday I felt on edge during the day. I received text messages from friends at the auction, some 900 miles away, saying “things are going great,” asking if I wanted to know what a particular piece brought. I was lulled into a false sense of jingle in my pocket from where I sat in picture book weather at a local park, listening to the New Mexico Philharmonic, smiling at young families and old people—even older than I—and frisky pooches on leashes out for a morning romp.

Last night I went to a play with a friend, a little blue even though I was relieved for the auction to be over. That doesn’t sound like letting go, does it. Of course, my mobile phone was turned off for the 2-1/2 hour performance. When I powered it up later, there was a text message with a photograph from two friends who had been at the auction. Earlier in the day they had sent a picture of the “packed house”. Now, late in the evening, they were telling me, “We found our shirts.” “What a prophet…” FOR SALE—ALL MY EARTHLY POSSESSIONS, indeed. “Thank you for reminding me of that twinkle of hope that planted itself in my dreams seven years ago. Your message and picture of our t-shirt brought a smile to my face.”

So as not to misrepresent my chosen circumstances, yes, most of what I have accumulated and treasured for three or more decades has gone on to others who seek material treasure and choose to own it for awhile and make money from it. By no means, though, am I done with stuff. We all start somewhere, and we are starting and starting and starting. And hopefully, along the way, we are saying, “thank you”. Oh, yes, yes, thank you.

It’s a long journey for some to sit in the lotus position. I haven’t perfected my technique yet. But I’ve said for several years now, “I’m going to start selling my collection. I don’t need to own all these things. And I don’t want to leave the job of dispersing them to someone else.” The advice I heard a few years ago, “Harold, just because you love something doesn’t mean you have to own it,” must be true and right. Or did she say, “…you don’t have to buy it”? As I heard my mother say sometimes to a friend who could also speak a little German, “macht nichts”…translates “makes no difference”. At some point, it doesn’t matter. Instead of a special meal with a healthy price tag, you’d rather just have some cheese and crackers—maybe even a store-bought 4 oz. container of strawberry jello. How forward thinking my mother and her friend were. I am a pilgrim, and my journey continues.


A Pilgrim’s Progress—Albuquerque, NM (September 16, 2012)
R. Harold Hollis