In the last year, I have been taking steps towards simplifying my life.  Part of that is divesting myself of the STUFF I’ve accumulated since my teens.  I started with easy items, like clothes I didn’t want or wear anymore.  No problem.  Then I moved on to bigger things, like furniture “projects” I hadn’t gotten around to, and knew I was probably never going to tackle in this lifetime.  Bye-bye, 1950s salon dryer chair.   I hope your new owner turns you into the reupholstered, reading lamp-slash-conversation piece I had always envisioned.

More recently, I decided I was finally ready to let go of many of my collectibles as well.   Between Etsy and ebay, I’m off to a solid start.   Two days ago, I listed one of my favorite pieces of vintage fabric.  It was an odd L-shaped barkcloth remnant-  not even a full yard-  but the pattern was extremely rare:  a lush southwestern scene featuring cactus flowers in shades of jadeite, fuchsia, and lemon yellow,  plus distant canyons of gray,  against a deep aqua ground.

I mean,  is that not spectacular yumminess?  Maybe you have to be into that sort of thing to appreciate it, but trust me, in the world of mid century textiles, it’s pretty fabulous.   As I posted the photos to ebay, I asked myself, “Why are you selling this, again?”   The honest answer was, as much as I loved this fabric, I’d never made it into anything useful or even visible in my world.  It wasn’t a plump, feather-filled throw pillow, proudly gracing my sofa.  It wasn’t a stylish shopping tote, making the rounds with me at the farmers’ market.  Nope, instead it spent years just folded up, on a shelf.  A sliver of color in a sea of other stacked fabrics.

If a saguaro falls in the desert and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  Does beauty exist if no one is there to appreciate it?   Well, I didn’t have long to ponder those questions,  because this morning my little cactus flower sold for its “Buy It Now” price.  I can’t lie and say I didn’t feel the tiniest flash of something… but it wasn’t regret.  It was more like… wistfulness.  I wish I had utilized this gorgeous textile in a way that it could have been enjoyed on a daily basis.   But I didn’t.  And now it was someone else’s turn.

I choose to see this purging process not only as a means to simplify my life, but also as a sort of “re-homing” program.  It’s okay that these things won’t be under my roof anymore.  I feel better, thinking of them out in the big ol’ world, being used and appreciated.

Happy Trails,  Cactus Flower.