All you never wanted

Round my way, eBay is not the preferred way of disposing of unwanted items, nor is it Gumtree. It is not even the fantastic bulky item disposal service provided gratis by the council. No, indeed, we prefer to just put stuff out on the street. If it is stuff that we are proud of, or we don't care what people think of us, we put it in front of our house. Sometimes, if it's something we are not so proud of, we put it in the shrubbery across the road.

I recently disposed of quite a number of items in this way. I have to say, the quality of the items I left on the street was fairly high, knowing as I do, that items will only get taken if somebody can think of a use for them. 9in fact, I myself was temted by a few things, and did stop to pick up a couple of pens on my way to school.) Having said that, I surmised that I really have very little idea of what somebody else might come up with a use for, so I tried my luck with all kinds of things. I will itemise those things that I can remember. All these things have been taken, over the last week.

An electric lawnmower (working)
A Dyson vacuum cleaner (hmm, not quite working)
A small radio/cassette player
Assorted small tiles
A large tub of tile fixative
A coat
Some brocade curtains
Various rubber stamps and ink
Assorted stationary
A hostess trolley
Assorted plates
Two calor gas fires
Three calor gas bottles (2 were later returned!)
A speaker
A thermos flask
Two pyrex dishes with lids
A pink lamp
About 8 beautifully made shutters with louvres

The only things that did not get taken were:

Four white dining chairs (I took them inside after 3 days when it rained, and decided I should keep them)
A box of large tiles (I'm leaving them outside:somebody must want them)
A canister of diesel oil
Two walnut effect curved cabinet doors (when my neighbour said he thought it unlike that anyone would take them, I mentioned that I had picked them up from outside somebody else's house)
A trestle table! I thought this would be highly desirable.

Check in

I've returned from my summer in rural France. The contrast with my city existence is vivid. There, the pace of life is slow. My basic needs are provided for, so I don't have to spend lots of time thinking about and making my meals, I just show up. Work is generally simple: mowing, weeding, pruning and fixing tools. I don't read a lot; my entertainment is provided by my interactions with other people and nature. I have time set aside to practice meditation.

Here, things are much faster, especially when University starts (6 days to go). I have to travel on the underground, which in itself is a high pressure environment at rush hour. I dash from one lecture to another, to work, to meetings. My brain speeds up. I cram text books on the tube. To balance my schoolwork, I read textbooks from other subject areas: linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, biology, philosophy. Does that balance? Perhaps not. I try to keep up with friends' blogs and facebook activities. I try to keep on top of the latest technological and scientific advances.

And so on. It's busy, and the point I'm making is that the busier I get, the more I feel the need to fill the little gaps with more business. Sometimes I feel my head will explode. I will try to keep a lid on this tendency, a bit. Try to notice the world going by sometimes. Cook myself a slow meal from time to time. Take the time to really, properly communicate with someone. Just thinking about it slows me down a bit. I realise that that space, that peace, is important to me.