Or, to quote a great philosopher, “Burn it down! Burn the motherfucker down, Pookie!”

A few days ago I charred my life. I’m free and clear of the burden of useless papers.

Cleaning the kitchen because copious cooking with a wok had lain waste to the stove. Then moving on to the bathroom to do a little exploration on that odd colored mold creeping up the side of the shower, to chat with it and come to an understanding about our various places in the order of the universe. And then wondering what all that crap in the pile in the corner of the spare room was. Seasons had changed, the years had passed me by, it had been so long since I had pondered that pile that it’s function had been lost, the same way stone circles bemused the Victorians.

A pile of letters and papers and pictures, postcards and scorecards, and squeezums and zeezums and wiggledy woggledy do.

Whoa…got a little Dr. Seuss there for a second.

Anyway, over the years I’d been tossing that stuff you think you should save but never ever look at again into a pile. In the days of yore, the pile was enclosed in a brown paper bag. Times change, life accumulates and the pile grew to bag busting proportions. Then the pile grew some more and covered the bag. It grew until I was afraid to go near it for fear of collapse. I’d just throw stuff onto it from across the room and run away.

Then this weekend something in my tiny mind snapped and it had to go, right now, bye bye pile, your time is done, but how to get rid of all that personal information about bank accounts or the various lascivious notes?…to the bank…my bank was so hot back in the day…we used to have some great…banking.

I have no access to a paper shredder and the thought of shredding a ton of paper by hand was not as appealing as gouging out my own eye with a butter knife.

It had to go. It had to go with privacy intact.

Burn it. Yeah, burn it. BURN IT! Burn that motherfucking pile!

Fire cleanses. Just ask any Middle Ages priest standing next to a witch.

So I burned away the crap of my life and it was kind of fun. Not just because I was playing with fire and that’s always a gas but that I managed to combine a tedious chore with a happy destructive moment and that was grand.

If you ever need to get rid of papers you don’t need anymore I strongly suggest burning them in a chiminea in your yard. Have a glass of wine while you cleanse your life.