No More Dust
June 26, 2021
I left Los Angeles today for London, and I promised myself I wouldn’t leave a mess. Every hotel room, AirBnB, and friend’s home I’ve dwelled in over the past eight years has been littered with my calling cards: a smattering of innocuous filth comprised of sand, tobacco, dirt, paper wrappers, coins, and discarded supplement capsules.
Today I left my father’s house for a new life – an adventure intended to render me a person of graceful value. But everyone seems to think I’m taking an extended vacation.
I promised myself I would show gratitude by leaving a clean room, free of extra objects. This was to initiate a new me – one that pays his debts and covers his tracks.
Instead, I left about 150lbs (68kg) of books, clothes, refuse, toiletries, storage containers, and a dirty yoga mat.
The worst part was when I unsuccessfully tried to empty into a trash bag the contents of my suitcase and backpack, which sent particles fanning out over the pristine, wooden floor.
The residue was the stuff of three months traveling without a clear purpose, intent, or routine. Lacking these structures invites complacency, vice, and ultimately resentment. That condition also produces a lot of garbage, unnecessary waste that, for the conscious consumer, feels like a knife jab to the spirit of personal development.
"No more dust," I told myself a week before I left.
I’m going to pack out in a calm and organized fashion – WRONG! I ran out of time and crammed whatever I could into two huge suitcases. Remnants of me spanned the bedroom and hallway.
Someone has to inspect that grainy guestroom and wonder quietly what kind of man can’t be bothered to restore his progenitor’s home to the glory he found it in – clean, orderly, and tranquil. It looked like I fled a boarding house in a hurry because I couldn’t pay the very modest rent and decided to abandon some of my hoarded items rather than face the proprietor.
It was the scene of one anxious to get away rather than one excited to begin the next chapter of their life.
I disgust myself with the piles I leave behind, both corporeal and inorganic – the byproducts of an anxious, flustered mind.
I didn’t even wash the sheets…
But to my credit, I did at least pull them off the bed and throw them in the corner. That way, someone knows for sure these are dirty (maybe even soiled.)
Luckily, I have another opportunity to be a five-star guest. I'm spending the next 2-4 weeks at a friend’s exquisite London loft. My crap isn’t scattered across the four corners (yet), which may save me time from undergoing an idiotic easter egg hunt for senior citizens. And I am ever more keenly aware that my movements can leave trails of hairs, lint, alpha-keratin, and sticky finger and toe prints.
I figure I’ll do a five-day pre-departure crime scene investigation, complete with magnifying glass and cloth sacks on my feet. Then when all is right, I’ll open the front door and usher out the limpid demons who arrived with me and sat on the couch for long days, enticing me to forget my manners.