On a rainy April 7th, I couldn’t find my camera; I couldn’t find a set of binoculars, nor could I find a favorite sweatshirt, so I started looking through drawers. In our minimalistic, simple life, Christine and I don’t have many places with stuff packed away. There are basement storage areas and closets, of course, but each season there’s a rifling that happens and a general purge. So then, where the hell is the camera? I began in the usual places. The kitchen “everything” drawer. Nope, but the charging cord was there, so I charged up my phone, the candle-lighter-thing we recently got, and my military charger that can provide multiple charges for “things” when on long treks away from electricity. Next, the drawers in the Media Room. Found a sticky, like it got dunked in honey, thumb drive; old papers and instructions for a printer we haven’t had for years; an old flip phone that took too many dunks in rivers and lakes over the years; and a set of ear phones for an Apple product – eww, they had wires! Everything got tossed. No camera. I didn’t expect to find the sweatshirt there, but I would get to that. I went to the garage and took down all the camping/outdoor boxes. Since I’ve been doing kayak talks all over the state, I thought maybe I plopped the binoculars and camera in one of the boxes of backcountry gear I take with me as exhibits. Nope. But I did smile realizing if all hell broke loose during the virus, Christine and I could survive for months on our “essentials” in those boxes – well, except for food. Which took me to my fishing supplies in the basement. Nope. But now I know we could always get food as long as we were near water. I did find some flies I tied two years ago that I couldn’t find. While downstairs, I checked my traveling book box that I sell books from during talks and lectures. Nope. But I did find some outdated first editions of some of my novels. Trashed. Back upstairs to my dressing room, better known as the Guest Room. Nope. But under the bed were four empty shoeboxes. Why? I looked in the four suitcases in the closet. Nada. Well, actually there was a small suitcase full of old underwear, socks, and some shirts that I haven’t worn in years. Okay then. Seems we’ve missed our seasonal purging for a few years. Perhaps being at home to purge would work instead of traipsing around lakes and trails and wineries and the lecture circuit and highways and airports and museums and campgrounds and offices and writing studios. Back downstairs to the Media Room to check the cabinet under the TV and … Right in front was the camera. And behind it was some stuff. Three empty phone boxes from Christine’s phones that she wanted to hang onto in case something had to be returned; some cables and a wireless thing that looked like a Star Trek antenna; and then I found photo albums: weddings, babies, holidays. I paused. I relaxed and found reasons why we haven’t purged so well. We’ve been living. We’ve been making sure life doesn’t pass us by so that we can’t say, near death, “I wish I would have done that.” I took the camera and found more pictures. I paused again. Do the sweatshirt and binoculars really mater that much?