Cleaning house!

"If you can't use it, lose it."

— Tony Blasi

AUBURN — I have always led a Spartan life and have lived by my own motto: "If you can't use it, lose it."

And I tend to lose it every spring when I go on a tear and clean out closets full of crap that ends up in a recycling bin or handed off to Goodwill, hoping my trash becomes somebody's treasure. 

If there is any way I can avoid sending my spring-cleaning relics to the dump, I will give it away or leave it on Goodwill's doorstep. Right now, we are down to one bag of trash a week, and the rest our waste ends up in a recycling bins or in my vegetable garden. I used to hold a yard sale, but it was too labor intensive and a damn hassle.

Becoming a pack rat and cluttering my home with stuff that eventually becomes an obstacle course has never entered my mind. Getting rid of useless things that usually occupy valuable living space in my modest, three-bedroom home gives me a sense of accomplishment and offers me some breathing room.

If I suddenly found myself joining the richest four percent even though I have no such aspirations, I would live the same frugal life. I would travel more, but owning a large home or an expensive vehicle seems absurd to me. Who would I want to impress and why would I give a damn about impressing anyone with my sudden wealth.

If a fat wallet impresses people, then the cost is too high to maintain a relationship with human beings who practice Gordon Gekko's creed: "Greed is good."

I can do without people who eventually become another kind of clutter in my life.

Sometimes, spring cleaning is a journey of self-discovery. Going through a closest packed with junk will sometimes yield a treasure trove of fond memories.

Last week, we emptied out a closest full of stuffed animals. Being sentimental, we kept a handful of toy creatures that meant so much to us, but the rest we shipped off to Goodwill. It was impossible to part with the stuffed animals that I won at carnivals for my son.

Going through the closest also gave me a chance to rediscover some of my mother's prized possessions — old Life magazines and a Revere Journal supplement celebrating Revere Beach's 100-year anniversary. It was published in 1996.  The beach was her second home and I can see why she saved a copy of Revere Beach's anniversary.

I read the entire supplement and couldn't help think about my mother (she died four years ago) who valued the written word and always found newspapers enlightening and worth the 50 cents to read them.

I started reading old Christmas and birthday cards that have piled up in a cloth bag. I refused to put them in a recycling bin. They are from people who passed on, but my memories of them remain strong, and I'll am not eager to cut my ties with the past, so the cards will stay in the closet.

I will throw anything away that no longer serves a purpose in my brief life, but letters, articles and books from my past will forever occupy space in my home.

That's the law at 53 Valley Street.

The letters are like a recorded history of my childhood, the marriage to my wife, Terri, the miraculous birth of my son, Anthony and the death of countless people who I loved. The old magazines are also like another timeline of my life.

So the letters, articles and cards stay, and everything else goes. After all, in the end when I become old and frail, all I will have are wonderful memories, and that new TV won't mean a damn thing to me as my life comes to a close.