Many months ago I read the Live Simple ebook. It drives me nuts that it’s not called “Live Simply,” but whatever. It advocates a pretty strict minimalism.

For the past few years, I’ve wanted to go back to basics, to get rid of all of the stuff I don’t need. It’s a big task, and I usually have more pressing issues to attend to, but it’s important because it affects my everyday life in many ways.

At the end of August, I got a big push of assistance. Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of my stuff. It’s sad, yes, and costly, but at the same time, it has given me license to start nearly anew. I still have some stuff in storage at my parents’ house that warrants sorting and expunging, but that stuff’s not in my apartment normally anyhow.

It’s possible to live well with relatively little ‘stuff’. Some might say that it’s impossible to live well with a lot. Here in my apartment in St.Louis, we’ve been living with a minimum of stuff. In the kitchen, perhaps the place I tend to clutter most, we have just enough pots, pans, and cooking utensils to get by. In my bedroom, I now have a bed, two TV tables for modular desk purposes, an OfficeJet multifunction printer, my suitcase, my backpack, a filing box, an iron, and my (minimal) clothes. And that’s basically enough.

It’s going to be harder to maintain this spartan aspect going forward. Here, I’m constantly haunted by the prospect of having too much stuff to drive back to New Orleans. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to bring the nice, queen size bed that was donated to me, as it’s pretty large and U-Haul trailers are expensive. Once I’m living in a more permanent situation, I’ll have to fight the reptilian hoarding instinct lest I squander this bittersweet opportunity to start over.

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