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Isn't that a wonderful realization? I'm reading through this book this week. I got it at a book-share party this Christmas season. The person who brought the book hadn't read it, and I was one of the last people to be able to choose a book. I took it to the dentist with me when I went in for teeth-cleaning which ended up also being for two crowns and a root canal. (Did I mention that I hate going to the dentist? I do and I cheerfully tell him that every time I go.) I took it just to look through it and then perhaps leave it in his waiting room. However, the book is filled with idea-gems that have really inspired me to consider how I collect things. I had to write down the issues that I think bring clutter to my life. Here's my list:
- I buy and read lots of books
- I don't put papers away after I finish a meeting or presentation.
- I do lots of trainings and use things from diverse sources, so I save things because I use them in different ways.
- I have diverse interests that require "stuff": painting, gardening, plants, jewelry, reading, cooking.
- I am sentimental about things.
- I have absorbed "things" from my mother's house.
- I have "things" left in my house that belong to my children.
- I feel I don't have enough storage space.
- I don't have a "home" for everything I own.
The book describes the ways "things" get in our houses: we bring them in, others give them or bring them to us, and things are also mailed to us.
I got out of that dentist chair after having had the work done for two crowns, and I was enthused. I got up the next morning and when I got home from having the root canal, I started cleaning out--I decided that I had to look past sentiment and only keep things that were very important to me. That means that this morning I sent my mother's roasting pan--all the pieces were together--to the DI. It's been in my downstairs storage room for two years and I've never used it. Out the door it went, along with the huge coffee table book someone gave me for my birthday and lots of books I'll never read again--yes, I got rid of Of Human Bondage as well as The Lovely Bones--I'll never read them again. My book cases have some empty spaces now. I emptied several baskets where I kept mysterious things I thought I would use some day. I haven't finished, but I've made some inroads and I see a clearing in the woods where I can build a little resting spot.
It really doesn't matter to anyone but me how I made the choices I did. However, making those choices made me think about what I really care about. Of course, I am loathe to ever part with a Jane Austen book, same with Marilynne Robinson and Haldor Laxness, but I know why I want to keep those authors. They say things that hang with me. I see what happens in the world around me explained by happenings in their works. They write things I want to remember. Besides, even though he won a Nobel Prize, Haldor Laxness doesn't have many readers and he needs to keep the ones he has.
Knowing what we want is most of the battle. Making the choices to decide what to keep and what to send on its way to other places pushes us good places. A sentence in the first chapter of the book states, 'None of us owns a single, solitary Thing permanently. Each of our Things flows through our fingers temporarily, on its way to somewhere else." I'm learning how to be more selective about the "things" that surround me. I don't want to spend a good portion of my life looking for that piece of paper I need and I think it's somewhere in this pile.
I'm wondering if this energy really is the book I'm reading or if it's some primeval need to clear out and make sense of my spaces as the old year ends. Maybe some of both? Happy New Year! I'm going to bed with fewer Things in my house than there were this morning, and that feels great, like I've accomplished something today. It's always a good idea to "travel light."
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