Sold the ranch.  Wasn't my idea.  Kids and friends said living in the woods with no phone, wood heat, and an old ford 4X4 truck made them uneasy in their minds. So the ranch sold lock, stock and barrel; truly. Walked away leaving everything to neighbors, and scavengers. Just like the place burned to the ground.  I don't let myself think of those tools, books, heirlooms, and things that I kept  rare and precious if not with utility then with memories both fond and frustrating.

I always wanted the kids to have the place and if not, to know there was always home where they could come and remember what was; good or bad.

It has ended. My son came up and got the process moving. I struggled.  We were near the front door when he looked at some boulders  near the porch and told me how he remembered  stepping from boulder to boulder in a game he made up from the boredom of living in the woods.  He remembered the past, being at home, his home for a moment.  I guess that was enough for me. It completed a circle of sorts and I realized the loss for me was the mission of maintaining a sense  of continuity.  

In the greater picture of this world  we live in, we live in denial of fundamental reality. We are selective and adopt a philosophy of out of sight; out of mind.  We anthropomorphize with regard to reality. Everything is alive and  in life, seeks to perpetuate its species through procreation, that is to say, continuity.

My old truck is not continuity but is more a touchstone, a marker, a fetish, a stimulant and symbol triggering moments of emotion both pleasurable and painful along my continuum of memories in my life.

So this object must move on to another or return to the earth and set me free.  Freedom is earned and, at the last is  freedom is not a choice but a result