Friends,

Last month, I traveled to the US to empty out a storage unit that my ex-boyfriend forced on me.

After I broke up with him, while I was living in another country, I told him I’d move everything into storage on my own, with help from friends and family. But he wanted it out before I could get there and arrange it.

As a result, there has been a cube of space tucked into a building just outside of Hollywood.

When I did my book tour for Hawk Mountain in 2022, I went to my ex’s house to get the key to the unit.

He gave me a ring of keys, saying one was probably the key, but he didn’t know.

I went to the building for the first time; a massive passagework, like House of Leaves or Backrooms, bigger on the inside than the outside.

Well, none of the keys worked.

He’d lost the key, or threw it away. It probably wasn’t intentional cruelty on his part, but it’s very possible that his subconscious desire to punish me had evinced this cartoonish prank; or that somewhere in him was the desire to stay tethered to me, to keep me connected to this final act of holding on.

There was no way to get in in the short amount of time I had. I left town and the space remained a psychic object.

For four more years the unopened door demanded a toll.

The fee for the space? $450 a month.

Finally, in July, I returned to it.

This time I hired a locksmith. His drill bit broke as he was trying to break open the lock, but he destroyed it eventually, and we got in.

At first, it just seemed like a stack of boxes and a few pieces of furniture.

I’d never been in the space before so I didn’t realize that behind that stack was an alcove, and in that alcove, rows and rows of more boxes.

In those boxes… well, the heavy outline of a life.

Journals, photos (thousands of photos), clothing, my old elementary school reports cards, my grandmother’s World War II ration stamps, images and DVDs and greeting cards bearing images of me from my film career, books (thousands of books), sculptures my uncle made, drawings…

In other words, a negative material space by which you might come to know me, at least in part, even if you had now idea who I was.

I had to get rid of almost all of it.

Over the next three weeks, I gradually touched the cast off evidence of who I’d been.

Mostly, I got rid of what felt like myself.

I watched photos form a glossy heap in a black garbage bag. I threw out old official documents that I obviously didn’t meed anymore. I crumbled up childhood drawings.

I made dozens of runs to little free libraries around the city and populated them with good books

I sold my very rare set of Herculoids toys for almost nothing. I sold rare books for almost nothing. I sold valuable comics for almost nothing.

Some things, I kept. My journals, especially. My thoughts felt more like events to me than most of the events that had occurred in my life. I wanted them

And some other mementoes. I found, for instance, the police report from when my ex boyfriend (a different ex-boyfriend) assaulted me. Did I keep it because I still felt unsafe without it, or because it commemorated some sort of power I had to endure?

I packed up four boxes of books to ship back.

I packed one box of papers.

I kept my mom’s tea cup to give to my partner’s mom in Ireland.

Life is a series of metamorphoses. We learn, we accumulate, we forget, we sleep, we wake, we die, we live again. Our bodies get fat and then skinny and then fat again, we shrink, we grow. The physical isn’t a static state, it’s always changing.

So how do we keep in touch with ourselves, so that the loss and gain don’t overwhelm us with the experiences of abandonment or envelopment?

Life is a series of metamorphoses. We learn, we accumulate, we forget, we sleep, we wake, we die, we live again. Our bodies get fat and then skinny and then fat again, we shrink, we grow. The physical isn’t a static state, it’s always changing.

So what’s behind it all? How do we keep in touch with ourselves, so that the loss and gain?

In the midst of the process, I was lucky enough to be on a podcast – The Minimalists Podcast – to talk about. If you’re not already a listener, you might know two of the hosts from my own show: Joshua Fields Milburn (AEWCH 216) and T.K. Coleman (AEWCH 226). On their podcast, runnign for many years now, they discuss why we need to get rid of things not for the sake of getting rid of them, but rather to be more in touch with what really matters. It’s been tremendously useful to me over the years, but especially in this process.

And we had a great conversation, about art, about how the lives we don’t live sustain the ones we do, how esotericism helps us find our stability, and more. Listen above via spotify or watch on YouTube.

And there’s also a longer version of the podcast on their patreon.

I hope you listen to this and it helps you, too, divest from the weight of material and find the levity of life.

CH