Purging (Cont.)

The energy of the New Year is stimulating the urge to purge...or it's just necessary. There is a disadvantage in living in one place for a long time, in my case, a rather small tenth-floor apartment (though large and cheap by Hong Kong standards) for 15 years, with no attic or basement and seriously limited closet space. Until here and now, the divestment of possessions has always occurred because we were moving. A little like dying I guess, or at least starting a new life, you realize there's stuff just not worth taking with.

And it's so hard to get the stuff out of the house. Used to be the charity scavengers would make occasional visits; we could leave stuff at the mailbox lobby, but the wise tree-slaughtering building management put an end to that convenience, probably for some insurance liability reason.

So now my purging of stuff usually means just moving things around until constipated piles accumulate and must be taken to Goodwill or Salvation Army. This is making me think of digestion; bulimic purging is equally messy although certainly more dangerous.

In order to accommodate a gift from the Wizard, I have had to sacrifice a closet which was largely occupied by shoes and bags, because I once alluded, not seriously, that it would be a great, or at least logical place for a large television. (Even though conventional wisdom is to not install televisions in a bedroom.) And now it will be. Ostensibly this will be better for my eyes than watching so many videos on my laptop, an in-bed-habit. (I live a sort of kang lifestyle.) Now I will be able to watch swordfights and conversations over tea tables, nearly life-sized, going on in my closet! And read the subtitles too (which was difficult and distracting from a distance on the now-obsolete 19-inch screen).

But the dunging out...it forced me to finally discard 15+-year-old suits and shoes that even if they fit, I would probably never wear again. Lacking a sister or a daughter (or a friend who would accept the stuff) I am left to bag it all up for Goodwill. (One word of advice from a friend; when you do this, NEVER go back to visit the bag.) I could take it to a consignment shop, or do some e-Bay trading, or have a garage sale, but that would just become another task. (Or I could wait until I became thin (if not young) again, but likely from some wasting disease which would not encourage the wearing of tailored tweed suits and silk blouses.)

The Wizard is very good at purging. But then, like many men, he buys new clothes, like uniforms, once a year, identical pants and socks to replace the ratty ones. He fails to understand the emotional attachment women have for old clothes, many of which outfits he bought for me; he always liked the career girl look, tailored suits and bowed Ferragamos. And a particularly difficult issue is what to do with old underwear...by which I mean lingerie that looked good when I was 32, but now is silly as a hippo in a tutu...underwear you can easily throw out when it gets sloppy, but silky, lacy, satin lingerie...how can you pass on used garments of seduction in a Goodwill bag or put them in a dumpster. I suppose some sort of witchy sacramental burning ritual is called for, crones in caftans chanting some passage from the Story of O while torching the lacy demi bras and thongs and teddies, feeding the fire with old bottles of Chanel No. 5 and the weirdly named Samsara.

In the end purging is about balancing practicality and passion. And "letting go." It is easy to speak about these things, like speaking about clearing the mind in meditation, but in actual practice, it takes great will. How many shoes and handbags does one actually need? (Hardly any.) But how many do you love? (All of them.) In my mind, this associates with fantasy promiscuity, looking for the perfect man. (With whom I already live, the one I would never discard.) These comments probably belong over on the yin side, so female, but the energy is all yang.

So now I am stranded among piles of old clothes and accessories (to say nothing of old board games), finally cutting some cords of attachment...but first I want to get that plasma TV installed so I can see Song Il-guk and Vincent Zhao (also perfect men) in high def.

Maybe I'll look through that lingerie pile again.

Les Operas Ont Finis!

The 2009 HOT season concluded last night, with a very agreeable Carmen. What a treat; I didn't realize it was in French. I actually understood some of it,  alors, un petit peu, without relying on the translation screen.  I bid a fond aloha to the now familiar couple in the adjacent seats; we look forward to seeing each other next year. We have much in  common with the Mrs., a delightful retired school teacher, and her husband, an avid hunter of pigs, goats and deer. We shared tales of the pet cats and birds we have loved, the chickens we have raised, the venison we have cooked -- sharing our mutual discovery that it is really much less messy to skin a chicken than to pluck it.  Not that any of us do this anymore.  And this at the opera, and a dramatic one indeed.  I don't know why I should have gotten so upset with Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video--opera is equally lascivious, albeit tempered with classical music. Of course, in Carmen, Jose actually did put a ring on it, but Carmen threw it back at him, fickle hottie that she was.  Carmen is just full of tunes you know in your heart, fado-like rhythms and melodies accompanied by sexy choreography. And of course, a downright lusty and foolish tragic plot.

Lust is a key element in opera. Two weeks ago, the second offering of the season was "The Abduction from the Seraglio," which I kept calling "The Rape of the Seraglio," thinking possibly of the Rape of the Sabines.  An early title apparently was "Rape in ...," but "Abduction from" turns the story more into a rescue operation, at least for modern ears to which "rape" only connotes sexual assault or violation.  This is the opera that was the source of the "too many notes" comment by the emperor who commissioned it from Mozart.  Our  HOT "Seraglio" performance  featured Hawaii's own environmentally correct Jason Scott Lee, in the non-singing, not-too-many-notes role of the pasha. He was good at the poses.  (I don't suppose it's any stranger to have this delightful Chinese-American playing a Turk than it was to have Richard Chamberlain star in The King and I, HOT's 2006 summer offering. What a lot of interesting talent we have in Hawaii!)   

Alas, in the not-so-bitter cold of a Hawaii winter, weary and busy with Chinese painting classes, opera-going, work (especially work) and social commitments,  I missed the Westminster Dog Show, where a stalwart old non-competitive spaniel won best-of-show.  I would like to have seen it. But dogs and opera will still be linked in my memories of this season: leaving the hall last night, we followed a young couple to the parking garage. He was carrying a nice Gucci tote out of which poked the head of a maltese or shih tzu, some fluffy toy purse pooch.  I didn't recall a dog in the cast (like the Barber of Seville's wayward bulldog in 2000, I think, has it been that long?  Or maybe it was The Marriage of Figaro).  We commented that the dog was really well behaved.  "Oh we always bring him, he loves the opera, the symphony and ballet too," the young woman confided.   

That's why I enjoy the opera -- you just never know what's going to happen.