Sunday night is sort of like a ceremony, a ritual. Separating the recycling, flatting out the boxes, gathering up everything in the house that could even be considered as trash, just to get it out, to start new. Sometimes, if it has been a particularly hard or stressful week, I will put the trash out first thing on Sunday morning, (I’m sure this doesn’t make the neighbors happy) it is just too much to deal with for one more day.

Once it is all out on the curb, out of my house, almost out of my life, I feel at peace. I know that it will be gone it the morning and I can start out the week anew.

Of course I’ll build up more trash as soon as that is picked up. Little slips of paper here and there or even bigger items that just have to go, but at least I know if I can make it through the week…………………

Last night I was thinking about it and I realized that in some of the most difficult times in my life I developed this almost obsessive habit of taking the trash out to the can every night, no matter how empty or full the bag was. It was like I was trying to get rid of something, but at the time I just didn’t know what.

Thinking about it now I realize I was so caught up in trying to throw away this mysterious rotten thing hidden somewhere in my house that I started just frantically throwing out everything, until pretty soon the only thing that was left was the rotten core. I had found it, but at that point I had nothing else.

There is something very meditative about trash day. I get better with it each year. Knowing what to throw out and what to keep is the hardest part of the chore, I know I have lost a lot that I now regret and kept a lot that I soon realized was trash.

I guess that is life. Sometimes a weed looks like a flower, sometimes lead looks like gold and sometimes trash looks like treasure.

There is something very meditative about trash day.