I put the following ad on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago.

As the title says, selling everything I own to go out and travel. Not giving up on materialism, just pawning it. There’s much more of the world out there than in here anyway; I’m not getting rid of anything but attachment to these things. But forget the metaphysics, you’re here about the stuff for sale.

No reasonable offer refused. Unreasonable, impossible or quixotic offers encouraged. Everything for sale except soul (it’s a bit tattered but I still want to keep it). A partial list:

• Vintage stereo gear
• Beds
• CF light bulbs
• Knife set
• My grandmother’s iron skillet
• Pollen
• Halloween and Christmas decorations
• Table
• Guitar
• Mystery gifts
• Furniture
• Blank CDs
• Egg timer
• Books
• XL t-shirts
• Really big kids’ night shirts
• Pre-cut-up-rags
• Dressers
• Empty boxes
• Unused toilet paper
• Halloween and Christmas decorations
• A sombrero
• My former work clothes
• Maps
• Car
• A broken clock that came with the house (it may be fixable, I haven’t taken it off the wall to find out)
• Glassware, barware, silverware, underwear (update: already sold the underwear)
• Lots and lots of computer stuff, including servers, laptops, cables, routers, hubs, switches, monitors, etc.
• …and many other things

All items sold as-is, but will be accurately described. Cause I’ve got karma to worry about!

So what’s in my future? Thanks for asking! Heading to Armenia for about 6-months. Then, who knows. Love to go to Argentina for a while so maybe I’ll work on that. India would be cool. And I haven’t been to Africa or Antarctica yet so those are on my list at some point. Oh, speaking of which I’ve got travel books for sale too. You never know when you’ll want to know where the blues bar is in Riga (sorry, they don’t do BBQ there). Or break a tooth in Tibet and need to find a dentist (your choices there are pretty grim, but the military hospital can patch you up).

I’m going to try making a living blogging (http://meanderingwoods.com – tell your friends) and photography. Maybe dabble in a little geopolitical discourse. Maybe set up a food stand and sell fish tacos wherever I am. That’d be a novelty in Russia! You know, whatever.

I got rid of a lot of stuff, made a few dollars and met a lot of cool people. And some weirdos too, like the guy who yelled at me for not being at home at 10pm the night before the yard sale when he came banging on my door. But mostly good folks, many interested in hearing my story as much as shopping.

Some of what I sold I was happy to be rid of. I sold off some furniture that I had no real attachment to, and some old stuff that was cluttering up my place but that I couldn’t bear to just throw out. Selling it off was a bonus – getting money to have people come and clean up.

But some of my stuff was hard to get rid of. I’d spent a lifetime acquiring and admiring it, and now I was giving it up. Like backpacks I took through Europe, books I enjoyed reading and kind of wanted to keep, my bed and sheets that I spent so many mornings of refuge in, while we both cursed the alarm clock for ringing so loudly so early.  It wasn’t just that I ws letting go of these things, it was that the value I placed on them personally was so much more than the yard sale value. And that was hard. If I’d parted with a precious object for $1M I’d feel adequately compensated. But for $1 it hurt.

But that was a cathartic process. Getting rid of the old things that kept me tied down. That freed me up to truly feel like I could travel without leaving so much behind. And that was good.