Reclaim, my word of the year, it's time to check-in. This word reaches into virtually every corner of my life. It pervasively touches the whole landscape, giving orientation to every road and rock, leading me back to my goals:

"To get back (something that was lost or taken away)"
"To get (a usable material) from materials that have been used before"
"To rescue from an undesirable state; to restore to a previous natural state"

More than reclaiming my life in general from veering off track, or reclaiming time lost down a black hole, or reclaiming my health after too much toxic exposure, or reclaiming my appearance after the onslaught of rosacea and chronic lack of sleep-water-exercise, or reclaiming my identity and independence from various relationships, or reclaiming my finances from fiascos big and small, or even reclaiming my chance to a life shaped to match my heart...

I want to reclaim my peace of mind. For so long, I felt captive to a negative hold that just wouldn't let me go, no matter how hard I tried to practice gratitude and various other mind-shifts. I felt so much external opposition that eventually "it is your own thinking / that darkens your world" (John O'Donohue). The internal and external worlds mirror each other, and like the chicken and the egg, I'm not sure which came first, but they sure go hand in hand. Inside-out and outside-in, I desperately needed things to shift. I think all that friction and pressure created a little fault line (that's where God came in) and eventually that helmet cracked open.

Now I can actually go to an expansive place where the breeze blows and I travel lightly, swinging freely from thought-vine to vine.

It was tempting for me to get upset about the waste left in the wake of March Forth. That ceramic top table where my first ever roommates and I displayed the goods for our parties. That set of teak units, deemed junk but would have been a mid-century-modern hipster vintage-shopper's dream. The TV console, the imperfect grill and dryer, the bookcases. Someone could have used that stuff. It could have been given away, sold, heck, even used for firewood to keep me warm over the past 2 days when the heat went out.

Determined to persist with my March Forth project, my current strategy is to pretend like I'm  moving. Last summer, I sold $340 worth of my stuff which I used to subsidize my rent during those two months when I couldn't bear to have a roommate. Now I've got $344.18 accumulated from selling a combination of things from my parents' house and my own non-essentials, all with the goal of being free from the burden of stuff, funding a family getaway, and transforming baggage into beautiful memories.

For starters, bye-bye bike, you made somebody's day today.