The Andalusian Fisherman and the American Tourist

Here is a story my mother used to tell: An Andalusian fisherman was lying on the warm sand next to his boat. Earlier, he had brought in a load of sardines, and now he was resting from his work. (The stereotype in Spain is that Andalusians, being southerners, are more easygoing than the rest of the population.)

An American tourist, his face red from too many hours on the beach, stopped in front of him. "Hey, what are you doing there, fella?" the tourist asked.

"I am resting in the sun. Is nice..." the fisherman said, yawning. He had picked up a little English from the tourists who descended on his village every summer.

"Resting!" the American exclaimed. "But it's still morning! Why don't you take your boat out again and fish some more?"

"Why?"

"Well, obviously, to catch more fish, and make more money. You know, moolah, euros."

"Why?"

"So you can buy a bigger boat!"

"A bigger boat?"

The American tourist sighed, and squatted down next to the fisherman. "Bigger boat, more fish, more fish, more money, comprende?"

"Yes. And then?"

"Then you buy another boat, and another, and..."

"But I can't fish in all those boats by myself."

"No, of course not," the American said, speaking slowly and distinctly. "You hire some men to help you fish."

"But then I have to pay these men!"

"Well, yes, a little. But you keep most of the profits for yourself, and then..."

"Then what?"

"Then you're rich!"

"And then?"

"Well...then you can lie on the beach, and rest."

Some Advice On Downsizing

Last spring at about this time I was in the throes of preparing to move to Wake Robin. It was the downsizing of a lifetime, the move before the final move to that tiny house that awaits us all--you know, the one where there’s no room to even stand up, not that we will want to stand up then.

Over three months, a constant torrent of stuff streamed out of our house--forty-eight boxes of books, some wooden spoons, a pressure cooker, my graduate school notebooks, a coin collection, the cheese press my husband made for me....  The books went to the library sale;  the pressure cooker and the coin collection went to the auction;  and I gave away the cheese press.  The grad school notebooks I guiltily jettisoned into the rental dumpster that decorated our yard.

Now, with the wisdom of hindsight, I feel qualified to pass on the following advice to those of you who are contemplating a similar move or are simply feeling trapped by too much stuff:

Don't give yourself a lot of time.  It’s going to be agony no matter how you do it, so take a deep breath and rip off the band-aid in one swift yank.

Remember that you are not your possessions.  More than that, your dearly departed--your mother who gave you that vase, the friend who painted that picture--are not that vase, or that picture.  They are not even IN the vase or the picture.  They are in your memories, and in your heart.  It's o.k. to let go of the things they left behind.

Don’t foist your treasures on your descendants.  It’s not their fault that on your wedding day you received seven silver nut dishes for which you have no use or space.  It’s not their fault that in a moment of madness you spent half your rent money on that oak Victorian desk.  They have no space for the desk, and they are too busy to polish silver.  Possibly they have never liked the dishes or the desk.  Taste in furnishings is not necessarily transmitted in the DNA.  Don’t take it personally.

If you decide to sell things, don’t expect to get for them anything near their real value, let alone the sentimental worth that they have accumulated for you over the years.  In this day of cheap goods, we are all drowning in material possessions.  Selling your things for a pittance, or giving them away, is the price you pay to have them disappear from your life, and it's a small price for the relief you will feel.

Trust me when I say that most objects, once you let them go, you will never miss.  You may never even remember them.  You think you’ll never be the same without your blue glass canning jars?  Go ahead and wrap them in newspaper, put them in a box from the liquor store and send them to the auction.  Once they’re out the door, if you ever think of them again it will be with the same serene fondness with which you now recall that boy you loved so desperately in high school, and the broken heart you thought would never mend.

(Sorry for the weird formatting--I can't seem to be able to fix it.)