Let it go – leaving a life

What a dramatic title. I know, but here are the alternatives:

Leaving the house – is not quite true, because it is much more than a house. It is the neighbors and friends, the garden and the birds that are currently in the bird house.

Leaving home behind me – that’s not true, because I have come too often in life and thought that’s it here I am. Have built a house and bought another, owned a loft in Berlin and was at home in an old apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Sitting by the fireplace and looking out into my garden, leaving is not that easy. Although I do not love the cold outside and not the consistently gray sky. Leaving is a very peculiar thing.

Enter exit

So I’m actually getting out of this my current life. I have a lot of time to get out. One and a half year or 545 days. That’s the plan. Getting out is not one of my favorite words. I think of precarious TV as some dropouts shows. These are the clueless guys – and thats what turns me off tremendously.

So I’m more likely to talk about boarding. Entering a kind of life again in which I have already spent a year. A free life with a lot of sun, warm water, a lot of inspiration. In which I felt at home despite or perhaps just because of the traveling as in no other place in the world.

There are two very different to do lists for me over the next year and a half. One is called “How do I get rid of everything I do not need anymore” and the other one “What do I take with me?”

Everything must Go

The second one is of course much nicer and will be more fun. The first, on the other hand, will give me a lot to think about. I own so much. Why do I have all these things? What was important to me and what has always been there. Why hoard books on shelves instead of giving them away right after reading? Of all my books, I’ve read no more than ten more than once, and I usually already know that during reading.

I know why I have 40 cups, over 70 plates and more than 6 complete cutlery. At the age of 40 I lived in a house near Trier and in Berlin (both Germany), and in both places I had offices. We also owned a sailing vessel full of gear, and when we had to dispose of my mother-in-law’s estate, all the stuff that surrounded us was the material of a lifetime. Much is already given away and some things will not be easy to give. But everything has to go.

Much more, I am looking forward to a time when I am surrounded only by things that mean something to us or even better, that we need.

Do you need books?

We will see. I will put together 20 books that mean so much to me that I think I need them. The list is still growing and is not quite final, but I’ll put it in here and I will be grateful you for your suggestions.

Clothes

That’s easy. Little, durable, easy to dry, favorite pieces.
Of course you need a fancy dress, and yes, I’ll even take a scarf with me. But no winter boots, no 20 jeans and only one white blouse. – I think ;-). Giving away clothes, bags and shoes is easy for me. It is more difficult to find someone who wants them. But I have such a fine taste ;-))

Technology

That’s a challenge. I work in a creative office. There is a huge screen, a laptop, a camera kit with all the Tam Tam, an electronic piano, various Wacoms, pens and paper of course, headphones, mouse, keyboards … it gets smaller and smaller, but without a chip a camera can’t be used. So my box of technology will probably be my eyeball of things to be taken.

Digital

On some 2TB hard drives I`ll take all the jobs we have had in the last 15 years. Photos, movies, fonts, concepts, designs.
On various other external records we take movies, eBooks and programs.

A list of everything you need for a life as “Liveaboards” I will publish here. It’s growing and Holger is already ahead of me. When talking about technology, it’s not the camera, but the weather software, the barograph, the coffee machine, or any winch.

So that’s it for today.

/ kb