I came to a philosophical decision when I decided I needed more room. I HAVE more room. I HAD more room. I just wasn’t using it. My personal problem? A family tendency to hang on to ‘heirlooms’ and ‘mementos.’ I later realized that in my mother’s case it was a few heirlooms and the fact she was just prioritizing and new furniture to replace the really old stuff just wasn’t in the cards.
I came to a great realization when I ended up the possessor of a 4-poster bed and matching suite, and a carpet and a set of silver and glassware—none of which is remotely ‘me.’ Yet—there it was. Heirlooms. Family duty.
Well, it’s still not me. I shed it toward another family member—I ended up sleeping on a mattress on the floor, eventually, (don’t feel sorry for me: that gave way to a very nice Sleep Number mattress I love—and a platform bed from Walmart: 79.00) —and at least I didn’t have to port that bed to Spokane. Or the rest of it.
And then I began to figure—I was living surrounded in ‘things’ that were mementos, a dozen of them, all to recall things—but one thing would do the job, and the rest could go. One tiny item can recall a whole period of your life—I have this stupid little green plastic star, for instance–mostly transparent, size of a dime, and I got it from a penny arcade machine on a band trip. That’s enough. With that little star I can remember that night, the park, the people, the rides, the things I liked, the contests, my whole band career. I don’t need anything else. I have this little memory box I started back when I was a kid, and treasures like that star go in there. Only happy memories go in that box—like the plaster cast of a raccoon’s print on a sandbank: beautiful day—I was early teens; it was the edge of autumn; it was one of my most favorite places to hike solo. Reminds me, too, of a period, the Wichita Mountains, the wildlife, and hikes, yes, along the artillery range fence—the day my brother decided he was old enough to go walkabout. It was a four hour search, in an area where, yes, sometimes there were shells from before they put the fences up, and it wasn’t a safe place—I walked that road as far as any kid his age possibly could; then I cut over to the housing development and searched there, and searched areas where I knew he had friends—finally reported in, to find out the rascal been home four, five hours ago, and by then my mother was worried about *me*. But it was funny, once I had had enough iced tea, and bandaged my blisters. That’s what the memory box is. One item. You pull up the rope from that well—and a whole world comes with it.
If an item recalls even part of something I’d as soon forget, say, anything from the second through fifth grade, out it goes. Don’t need the classroom part of those years. Sixth was better. But I only need one item. If it doesn’t fit in that box, I really have to ask why I need it.
So, yes, my own bedroom furniture is mostly Walmart or the equivalent. But I can change it when my mood changes. I have sitabouts, but they’re things that make me smile, not launch into maudlin memory. Amnesia, correctly applied, is a good thing. There’s nothing in my living space that represents anything rotten. And there’s nothing I hate-but-have-to-pass-on. I do my service to the generations by keeping track of people—genealogy—I don’t keep a bedroom suite that’s not my taste. I’m living my life, not somebody else’s.
Time for another ‘shed’ of stuff. This time it doesn’t need to be much, but it’s amazing how one item you don’t know what to do with becomes the nucleus around which ‘stuff’ gathers, until it’s like that great trash-collection in mid-Pacific. More flotsam keeps swirling in to join it until you not only have a table you don’t like, you have things you don’t need atop the table you don’t like.
It feels rather liberating to see that item out the door.
I’ve been at my current place over three years and apparently it has been enough time to put down weed-like roots. I don’t really want to be rooted here. It was supposed to be a launching point of someplace better. That was the plan.
I keep mementos, but part of me wouldn’t mind an act of god resetting my possession count to zero. I grew up nomadic and being in one place too long with too much stuff has become the uncomfortable thing. Between the stupid giant bed I bought, a vintage metal kitchen table, and my book collection (arg) my ability to pack and move during the night is hampered.
The doctor said I shouldn’t be around that many moldy/mitey books so I’ve been slowly packing them up the last few weeks. And throwing other stuff out while I am at it. Putting things in piles to give away. All those things I thought I’d get around to, bits of craft things I salvaged, stuff that can only be categorized as junk, out. There is a community exchange table in my parents town where I got rid of all my VHS a while back. Seriously. They all vanished in an hour! The table’s target audience still uses VHS. I’m sure some old lady will like my scrap fabric collection too.
One thing led to another and now it looks like I’m moving! I wish. I will feel better when I get things back down to a portable level again.
I know where you’re coming from, Sweetbo—I was a government brat most of my life, unused to rooting…and I share your allergy to books. My birth-family was, I think, a little shocked that I took out toward the north–but the Great Plains was doing me in bit by bit. I tried to keep my books in my bedroom in an apartment, and ended up putting curtains over the bookcases to try to hold the dust behind them—it did help to get out of the Great Plains, because lowering the number of bad allergens you’r exposed to on a near-continual basis really does help. Now the books’re in the basement, and we run air filters: one day we’ll be organized enough to close that one door and filter the daylights out of the basement itself.
I’m sitting here this evening having had a run-in with Spokane Valley, where we lived for 2 years, and had terrible allergies. I hate to drive into the Valley in the spring—it’s only about 10 miles from here, but it just kills me. My eyes were so painful I could hardly see where I was going and I was so achy I could hardly get out of a chair. I’m home now—2 Advil and clean air here on the heights, and I’m fine and not feeling pain. Bizarre, eh?
That’s one thing you can say about the e-readers: they don’t shed dust: dust is one of my enemies. That and deciduous tree pollen and cedars. Cedar is what this felt like—and it may be. WHen you live in hilly terrain, altitude often determines the flora you’re exposed to. WE’re at about 2000 feet here, and it’s very comfy.
I sure hope you can find relief from the allergies. Sometimes it does take portability and looking for a comfortable spot.
Funny thing is that after getting diagnosed with celiac and going gluten free 90% of my “allergies” went away. Over the last 5 years there were getting unbearably worse and it was all because of that. Books/dogs/cats, my favorite things, are the only major allergy issues not caused by gluten. The doctor was wondering why I was having some troubles and then I explained my book situation… I guess he isn’t used to people my age having that many books. Oops.
ereaders have been a blessing. I thought I’d be emotionally unable to put books away, but all of that attachment has been transferred over to my kindle. Just looking at it gives me warm fuzzies. I fear the day I have to get a K3. I’m used to K2s and don’t like the nav changes. #firstworldproblems
Not so much the Augean stables here as Sisyphus’ rock. I no sooner get the clutter rolled out of my life than here it comes rolling right back in again.
I have 3 drawers that are charitably called “junk” drawers. I really should buckle down and dump the contents on a table for sorting. At least one of the drawers is largely occupied by project material which needs to be relocated.
There’s a programme on TV in Britain at the moment, about extreme hoarders. Some have accumulated so much stuff that they are almost buried under it – it’s positively hazardous to health. One man had just a small space in the midst of piles of junk where he would sleep, sit and eat.
In most cases the accumulation of stuff seemed to be a result of loneliness, looking back at the past and living in it, and not letting go of people the horders had lost. Perhaps it is fear and insecurity that drives many people to want to own lots of possessions, which they subconsciously think will connect them to a perceived happier past? It is really a serious mental disorder.
I think getting rid of stuff in the way CJ has done is really healthy.
We have them too—in my book, animal hoarders are the worst—I won’t even tell you about the one we just had locally; it’s too unpleasant. And after our construction project we did our share of stepping over things—if I tripped over that iron sink in the kitchen floor one more time, I was going to have a catfit. But we now have things almost under control. The floor has finally almost settled after buckling in the kitchen flood; we can at least live with it; we have gotten rid of the construction stuff; and the garage sale is going to help us a lot! I don’t like to have them, because it sometimes brings very strange people to your house, some of them quite evidently not regular inhabitants of this planet—and I just don’t like to engage with some of the people who show up. But donating the spare stuff to a good cause—cool. I think the give-away group named above (or is it below) is a cool idea, too.
Animal hoarders? Do you mean people who hoard live animals?
In fact, one of my sisters rescues animals (has done so for some 30 years, though she is an illustrator by profession). There was a time when she had c. 26 dogs, a cat or two, plus assorted birds, rat families (actually quite charming), and so on. She has now managed to restrict herself to around seven dogs, plus five large parrots (one of which, a very intelligent bird, swears like no human being I’ve known) and an aviary full of rescued smaller parrots, doves, parakeets, and the like.
Trouble is, she has a very good heart and cannot resist animals that no one wants. One of the current dogs was rescued in Thailand, where it had been knocked over by a car. She was given an absolutely tiny, unfledged budgerigar that was almost like an embryo, and managed to save it by feeding it every couple of hours and keeping it with her. It grew up into the most beautiful, jewel-like turquoise/white creature, and even though it must have been imprinted on her, it chose to live in the aviary with the other small birds.
I suppose keeping all the animals is a type of hoarding – commendable because she is saving lives, but expensive and very difficult to keep the place clean with so many animals, though they are all wonderful characters with distinct personalities…
There’s a difference between rescuers and hoarders. Rescuers are interested in finding homes for animals with no other recourse—and are, in my reckoning, saints.
For hoarders, they couldn’t think of giving up one of their pets, who may number into the outrageous—their entire budget revolves into feeding the pets, who sit on every surface in the house, hygiene has gone long ago, and many of the pets have been driven as bozo as the owner. There’s the cat who lives only atop the refrigerator and eats up there, because it’s terrified to come down, the bathroom cats, the bedroom cats—or dogs. WIthout enough territory for mental health, the animals begin to carve out little niches of safety from the more dominant, and the hoarder believes they are the only person who understands these poor animals…cats particularly become fearful and bonkers; dogs have a pack structure and I suppose they tolerate it a bit better, but…
You ARE free to observe that two cats, a marine tank AND 5000 gallon koi pond is pushing it…
I thought when I was young and stupid that I’d run a Persian cattery, and did briefly. At my largest, I had five adults at any given time, got up to seven. And the politics of THAT was often on the edge. I decided rapidly that I couldn’t do it. It couldn’t be a business for me: I cared too much where the kittens went, and I’d take back the ones that didn’t fit, and retained those with medical problems, which is how I went to seven—it took me five years to find homes for all but three, and would not sell to people I had bad vibes about—[I gave one of my best kittens to my brother: splendid cat when he grew up, and a sweetheart.] One to my mother—but that one came back, too, dear old Copper. I lost money on the venture hand over fist, and three was the max I will *ever* attempt to deal with, myself.
In the case of my sister, she would find it very difficult to give up any of her rescued animals. They are all distinct characters – even the birds – and they do all seem to live in harmony together. For instance, when she has introduced the odd cat or so in the past, it very soon became part of the pack – and indeed seemed to be quite dominant in it. It always slept with the dogs, who tend to sleep all piled up together.
I think she is quite a disciplinarian, otherwise there would be chaos in her house. The dogs have all been pretty well behaved considering some of their backgrounds. One rather beautiful and charming lurcher used to roam free on an estate, for example. Another terrier-type dog is completely blind, though you wouldn’t think it at all judging by his behaviour – it’s quite extraordinary to see him running around in the park and always coming back when he is called, and navigating around obstacles in the house using his other senses.
My sister is certainly trying to limit the number of animals she takes in, because it’s very hard to look after them and try to work at the same time. The other thing is that some of them live a very long time. One of the parrots, an Amazon, is about 90 years old already. It is being ‘looked after’ by an Amazon of a different species, which is certainly several decades old.
In my experience, several cats in a household can get on together (depending on various circumstances), though there is generally some tension between them unless they are from the same litter. However, in some cases they can detest each other and never get used to living together. I think domestic cats, which are descended from the Wildcat, are naturally solitary creatures…
Does she have a good relationship with the local vet and have checks and balances? The difference between hoarders and rescuers can be off the grid, reclusive behavior. I think it is perfectly natural for people to want to help animals. It’s actually a sign of humanity to feel compassion. The problem is when they go off grid, get in over their heads, and can’t care for the animals at the level that they deserve.
Yes, she had a good relationship with a local vet, and in fact a few of her animals have come to her via him or one of the nurses.
She is certainly not reclusive – has more of a social life than I do, in fact, with assorted interesting people. She is very kind hearted and compassionate, and I think people appreciate her, because she has been helped financially by individuals who could afford it a few times. I empathize with her, but tend to blank off horrible things and could not go as far as she has done. It is a huge sacrifice.
And as I said, she does impose discipline on the household. Even the big parrots go back obediently into their cages when told ‘Go to bed’ – well, that’s apart from the male African Grey who swears like a trooper. He will practise diversionary tactics such as blowing her kisses and the like to defer the moment…
I’ve had 1/3 of my stuff in storage for 8 years. It made sense at the time… 🙁
We have that tee-shirt. Size large, anybody?
Make mine XXL literally and figuratively. On a shoestring ranch we never threw anything away because it might just be the thingamabob that you can fit into the next repair and lash in place with baling twine or wire. Trips into town for replacements were too expensive in time and money for us. I’ve straightened many a used nail or fencing staple. My susburban garage has quite a collection of wood and metal scraps that might be useful within the next millenium.
I’m kind of curious about this thought process and the atevi. They live literally surrounded by things that great-great-great…whoever decided to get. And it seems like getting rid of that historic 4-poster bed in favor of the sleighbed (my favorite style!) that really appeals to the current occupant would be considered nothing short of sacrilege. But someone had to be the person who started the collection.
I’d say there are several motives at play here. When you live in a society where things get used hard and assassination is part of life, you may not have a lot of hand-me-downs that survive more than a few generations. This leads to a respect for the things that have survived. Also, styles in atevi society may cycle through being in or out of favor. The current interest in lace at collar and cuffs may diminish over several generations, then return. Ditto tastes in furnishings (small spoiler ahead), which is why Cajeiri got to run wild through storage and pick things he thought suitable for a young sir of almost felicitous nine, for his new digs.
I once visited an artist acquaintance, and was delighted by his house: everything you touched, everyplace you turned—it was artwork. The dishes were art. The spoons were individual, and art. The little pot holding the pencils was art, ditto the desk—I’m sure there were mass-produced things in evidence, but I was quite enchanted by the notion of having a house where absolutely everything was produced by somebody, uniquely…
I tried it myself for a while—acquiring things of that sort. I have a few pieces I still treasure, and have managed to preserve several of them from mishap—but it requires a degree of care and time in acquisition that I don’t have. Bed-base from Walmart I fear has become my personal style. Economical, frees me to do the things I like, and, hey, I have cats. Having Pets means anything can be a Pet Toy. You will notice a dearth of pets among atevi. Cajeiri has this odd notion…
Beware of experiments in Kitty Gravity, usually involving breakables and heights.
Oh dear, oh dear. Realizing some serious thinning of ‘stuff’ really should happen, but I’m starting to hyperventilate. Those closets are rather daunting — boxes got shoehorned in them when we bought the house eleven years ago. The gods only know what is really in those boxes.
Ever seen the play “Arsenic and Old Lace?”
When my college roomie and I found a flat to rent in Baltimore, in a building with a cornerstone in the late 1700’s—we found we had a window seat, or multiple window seats, in a triple bay window. The windowbox, we found, was painted shut—probably ages ago, since nothing in the flat showed much maintenance since they’d given up gaslights and installed cloth wiring to convert to electricity. The receptacles were ancient porcelain things that were too large-gauge for modern plugs—even for the plug of the 1950’s vintage pawn shop B&W telly that was our entertainment. [When the bus would pass the apartment at five of and 25 after, the whole building would vibrate and the plug would fall out of the socket, giving us no clue how programs had ended—so we put masking tape on the plug to hold it in the socket. It was that kind of place. George Washington had probably seen wallpaper like that: it was sort of brown/beige, faded sort of brown medallions and stripes, but very quiet—the design had mostly faded away.
Those window seats were fascinating. But impenetrable. We made several attempts to get into them. Didn’t want to scar anything. But that paint was killer. And old.
If you know the play—the window seats did figure in some disappearances. And we had our suspicions that anyone we found in there would be in knee breeches and hose.
That was one of those movies I loved as a kid and can love as an adult. Physical humor and wit. Something for everyone. Rope was similar, though not as funny I remember. For some reason bodies stuffed in furniture needs no translation between the generations. Weekend At Burnie’s banked on morbid being funny.
Just a note to say that for myself, I love to get hold of old, handmade things that I really love, particularly things like beautifully crafted rural furniture made of dark oak wood from the Georgian period, which was very simple. Social history is fascinating, and one can imagine the people who must have used such pieces. Many old objects were also well made, and I like the idea of recycling as much as possible, rather than wasting the world’s natural resources to produce more ‘stuff’.
I also like things like old glassware – but as you said earlier, it does take time and care to build up a selection of things that you really like and will use, as opposed to ‘collecting’ items in a hoarding manner.
An alert to look at everything when cleaning/clearing. When Proge’s dad and I were getting a family house ready to sell, we found several letters from famous authors the grandmother collected, stuffed in with a bunch of old bills. We found we could only sort for a short period or we became too cavalier and tossed without looking. Scary to sort valuables and miss something.
That’s how ‘rarity’ happens. Mums who toss comic book collections, people who toss the old fishing lures…
But then again ‘rarity’ is a natural process. I’m just helping all those other people have a ‘rare’ object.
Seriously—I do take care—
Rarities that you have valued, you would probably like to see go to someone who appreciates them as much as you did. If they don’t, sometimes you have to learn to let go gracefully, or at least pry your fingers loose! The problem comes in distinguishing truly ‘valuable’ from ‘I think it’s neat, therefore valuable’. I tend to try to agree with William Morris: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. I like his stuff, too 🙂
We recently reduced from two houses to one, and consolidated into the smaller of the two. Great reshufflings of things. We took everything we couldn’t keep or didn’t want to keep to the house we sold, used Freecyle liberally, and got an auctioneer to help us get rid of the rest of the stuff, and brought to the other house the things we loved and could house and could use. We didn’t make much on the sales but we didn’t have to pay to have things carted off, and now, in one house, we are surrounded only by things we love. We kept all of the art, or most of it, although we had to get rid of half the books. That put paid to my Librarything addiction because I hadn’t the heart to indicate the deacquisitions there. And it was sad to get rid of some of the things that were memory sinks – like the little white wooden rocker I bought for our oldest child when she was about 2. Since she is now 12 going on 18 we have no further use for the rocker, but such happy memories! But it is so liberating not to have the burden of stuff.
My dad is becoming very frail, and my mom and I have already pretty much decided that when he passes, I will move in with her, as it makes financial sense for both of us. I can’t see asking her to get rid of her stuff to make room for mine, and our tastes differ — radically in some cases. (She will have to get rid of my old bedroom furniture as I’m absolutely not giving up my Queen sized bed!) So what will I do with my dining room furniture, kitchen stuff (including my willow ware dishes!), leather sofa and chairs, etc., for the remainder of her life? I will have to put it in storage. I’ve got a lot of stuff, but she is the Queen of Stuff — all the closets full, no room underneath any bed — Obviously, this acorn didn’t fall far from the tree – LOL! But in extenuation, her generation grew up during the Depression when they had to make do with very little. They had so little growing up, it is important to her emotionally to have more stuff than she needs. No surprise that the girl who had to wear a dress for a week at a time now has three closets full of clothes. It’s also very important to her to have Nice Stuff. But it’s equally important to me to have My Stuff. The melding of our two households is going to be nothing if not interesting. — :oP
WOL, your mom reminds me somewhat of my ex-wife, who was born in Harlan County, KY, at a time when it was the poorest county in the country. She had very little growing up, even after the family moved from KY to Michigan. When she and I married, the double incomes made it easier for her to get things she’d never had, and I was happy to give her that opportunity. Then, when she retired, the income was cut in half, but the expenditures didn’t occur proportionately. It was probably a built-in response to her childhood (and some of her adulthood, too) to accumulate as much stuff as she could. Now, I’ve just moved, and I’ve gotten rid of a bunch of stuff, but not as much as I need to. I have just started getting to the point where I can walk in the living room, but there are still boxes in the middle of the floor that need to be moved, emptied, and then the cardboard recycled. So many books, many of which are college textbooks, and can’t be sold back. I just don’t know what to do with them, and I hate throwing books away – it seems like such a waste.
Definitely storage, there. I think you ought to completely clear the room you will use, if it requires putting some of her stuff in storage with yours, and put only the stuff you want in your room.
Re taming the book monster: this might help! http://www.booksforafrica.org/
On any of these sorts, check their reviews: some are iffy, but this one seems to pass the scam-o-meter tests handsomely.
@joekc6nlx, When we moved, it took months and months to empty out the last of the boxes. We were determined to *not* just toss stuff into closets! We were able to sell the boxes in a couple of batches, not for a lot of money, but we didn’t have to haul them off and it let us go out for dinner, and the folks who bought them got an easy-to-use pile of great moving boxes for way less than they would have cost new. For your textbooks, perhaps your library has a “free” box, if they aren’t able to use the books for a book sale?
Check to see if you have a local Friends of the library group. Even if your library can’t or doesn’t take donations, the FoL often will take them, resell them, and use the proceeds to support your library. A good rule of thumb is, if it’s too gruesome for you to keep, it probably should go into the trash. I have noted before that the Friends (and most other folks) do not want disintegrating, moldy, out-of-date books that have been stored where the cats, mice, and other beasts may nest in them, nibble them, or pee on them!
High school theatre groups would probably love to have some vintage clothing. Sad to say, most of my personal wardrobe probably qualifies as ‘vintage’.
I can’t toss a book, no matter the condition – but my local ‘trade in’ used bookstore will take them – and toss them FOR me (since I can’t) and occasionally they’ll even grant me a few pennies of used book credit, too (out of the kindness of their hearts and for a constant customer).
Last time I counted the library in my basement shelves, I had something over 6000 books. There are more now. I have been – for a year now – sorting and re-sorting, giving away, trading in, and – lately – selling some, with a view to reducing to something under 3000 (target) of the GOOD books I will RE-read, more than once – and, of course, the inherited shelves of books I received from my father, who received them from HIS father….
Hey, they are Kipling, and O’Henry, and R. L. Stevenson – keepers, surely…
Frankly, I can see that 3000 target receding into the distance even as we speak.
Heh. MY father also left me sets of Kipling and O’Henry that he received from HIS father. Someday, I’ll finish reading them!
Good luck on the 3000 target.