Stuff
This article first appeared in the Minden Times in June 2024.
I had out-of-town guests and took them to the Kinmount Theatre to see the Movie Man movie about the man who imagined that tribute to all things movie. It left me feeling sad. Why? Because his dilemma – who will carry on his life work and care for the creatures he loves when he is gone? – is a common challenge (although his specifics are indisputably unique).
The more common manifestation of this dilemma among my friends and acquaintances is our feeble struggles to de-clutter and get rid of stuff our children will hate us for having when we die and leave them to figure out how to get rid of it. Getting rid of stuff is not easy! Even triaging stuff is difficult. What’s true junk that should absolutely go to the dump? What should be left at the roadside with a ‘free’ sign in the hopes that some imaginative person will find its next life? What’s good enough to go to the thrift shop? What deserves a yard sale or will sell on line? The mere prospect of triaging sucks one’s motivation dry. So there the stuff remains.
I didn’t pay attention to the wave of Marie Kondo enthusiasm/guilt; I picked up that we should only retain stuff that ‘sparks joy’. I have had a joyful life, part of which is getting excited about a freebie and finding a new purpose for something. Consequently, there are many things in my home that still give me joy, not for what they are but for how they came to me or what I might do with them, some day.
So when I think about getting rid of stuff, I think I should write a little story about each item and send it to its next life with a history. Sort of like mothers tucked mementos into the swaddlings of their newborns before they left them on the church steps. Knowing it was unlikely that the message would make it through the meanderings of life. But knowing, perhaps, that history is the only thing that differentiates one thing from another.
It's almost expected that when we travel, we bring back mementos to anchor our recollections – or maybe to be the pivot points for enlightening our friends with our tales of adventure and wonder. But what about the adventure and wonder of everyday life? The markers of the twists and turns of fate – or whatever we choose to call the forces that determine our pathway through the years.
Marie Kondo aside, there’s an expectation that as we age we should occupy less space. We don’t need the dinner settings for 12, or the full complement of kitchen gadgets because we don’t have the energy to entertain the masses. Or the masses are dispersed, or have such complicated eating limitations they’re impossible guests, or don’t drive after twilight. Perhaps our current activities require less space, but we need more space to hold the memorabilia that collects and contains and reminds us of our lives. We particularly need things as mnemonics, as the people who might help us remember grow dimmer and depart.
My guest, the one I took to the Kinmount Theatre, whom I have known since she was 16, wandered through my house commenting on how much stuff I have. That stung me. I take pride in being anti-materialistic. I do not measure myself by my belongings.
Or do I? Not in the way I hate, the big-house-big-car-show-offy way. But I do have a lot of stuff and I value it and I have trouble getting rid of it because it reminds me of the life I’ve had. It’s a record. I am who I am because of where and how I was born and raised, but also the life I lived in more places than I have fingers. Settling here now for 27 years in the same house that contains the hallmarks of that wandering – no, not wandering, always purposeful! – life. My friend decided I’m likely to stay here until they carry me out in a pine box (as if they made them any more!) and my children should get used to the idea that there’ll be stuff to get rid of. And maybe there’ll be little stories tucked into their swaddlings.
