Long time no post! My blog at ThingsIGaveAway.com has gone MIA, so I am back here for the short run until my other online home is available. Speaking of homes, since it is spring I have decluttering, cleaning and redecorating on my mind. I have two visions in mind: (1) a smaller, well-appointed, more manageable home, here in the Great White North i.e. being in a position to sell this house in the years ahead, and (2) creating a home environment now that supports everyone in the family and that I am not a slave to. That is a pretty big bite, but manageable, provided I enlist some help. Husband will serve as devil's advocate and sharp rock against which I throw myself.
What I am sure of is that I do not want to spend my life energy on maintaining any more stuff than necessary. Of course, this brings one to that essential contradiction in life, trying to find that critical balance between stuff we need and stuff we don’t. Maybe need is the wrong word.
The February 2011 De-Clutter Your Life issue of O Magazine, brought this issue sharply into focus. Oprah declared: "Enough already with the stuff that doesn't enhance who you really are." ("What I Know for Sure", page 212). I couldn't agree more. At the same time, the magazine is stuffed to the suggestion for more things to buy (The O List, Look What we Found!, Great Buys Under $100, not to mention page after page of ads for still more stuff.) And here we have the essential contradiction that so many of us face. What to keep? What to toss? What to acquire? What to invest our life energy in?
This is the question I intend to examine in the weeks and months ahead. For now, I’ve thought of one question to help me stay on task: is this something that I want to drag with me to my next house?
Showing posts with label de-cluttering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label de-cluttering. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Trophies to Give Away, Memories to Keep
It’s funny how memory works.
Last fall, in a fit of de-cluttering, I came across a storage bin full of old trophies: awards from various run/bike/swim events I’d competed in, cross-country ski loppets, mountain bike races. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, endurance sports were a big part of my life. There were academic awards, too, my Ontario scholar plaque, a couple of prizes from the short time I spent as a Toastmaster.
I had to ask myself what I was keeping all this stuff for. In comparison to the richness of my memories, this ‘hardware’ looked cheap and ridiculous. Knick-knacks. They weren’t even on display, they were sitting out here in the damp.
I picked up a trophy and read the plaque: Scanlon Creek Mountain Bike Race 1995, 1st place. The plastic cyclist perched on top was now riding a little askew. 1995. That would have been the summer we bought our first house, this house, the summer when I became pregnant with my first child. I remember one particular day during that time with absolute clarity. I was pedaling my road bike up a steep hill on a back-country road, something I was very good at. I was inexplicably short of breath, not able to get enough air in, and suddenly it occurred to me: “Could I be.. is it possible... am I pregnant?” This epiphany, this life-altering moment, came while I was on a bike, doing something I did well, powering a bike straight uphill. I put the trophy back down.
My husband helped me take photos of my collection – and his, too. We chose a handful of trophies to keep and trashed the rest. There is more work to do here, more paring down perhaps, and still the question of what to do with this stuff. But there is also this: the power of tangible reminders. What happens when you pick up an object from another time in your life and hold it in your hand.
Last fall, in a fit of de-cluttering, I came across a storage bin full of old trophies: awards from various run/bike/swim events I’d competed in, cross-country ski loppets, mountain bike races. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, endurance sports were a big part of my life. There were academic awards, too, my Ontario scholar plaque, a couple of prizes from the short time I spent as a Toastmaster.
I had to ask myself what I was keeping all this stuff for. In comparison to the richness of my memories, this ‘hardware’ looked cheap and ridiculous. Knick-knacks. They weren’t even on display, they were sitting out here in the damp.
I picked up a trophy and read the plaque: Scanlon Creek Mountain Bike Race 1995, 1st place. The plastic cyclist perched on top was now riding a little askew. 1995. That would have been the summer we bought our first house, this house, the summer when I became pregnant with my first child. I remember one particular day during that time with absolute clarity. I was pedaling my road bike up a steep hill on a back-country road, something I was very good at. I was inexplicably short of breath, not able to get enough air in, and suddenly it occurred to me: “Could I be.. is it possible... am I pregnant?” This epiphany, this life-altering moment, came while I was on a bike, doing something I did well, powering a bike straight uphill. I put the trophy back down.
My husband helped me take photos of my collection – and his, too. We chose a handful of trophies to keep and trashed the rest. There is more work to do here, more paring down perhaps, and still the question of what to do with this stuff. But there is also this: the power of tangible reminders. What happens when you pick up an object from another time in your life and hold it in your hand.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Stuff I Gave Away – Today’s Shortlist
• sandbox toys that were sun-faded and cracked;
• perfectly good weather-stripping that we don’t need;
• tennis balls faded to grey;
• decorative Christmas twigs spray-painted a garish gold that have left sparkly droppings everywhere they’ve been for the last five years; and
• my e-subscription to the World Intellectual Property Organizations’s SME Newsletter. Every month when this periodical arrives in my in-box, I file it under “To Read” and feel a pang of failure for never, ever actually reading it. (SME = Small & Medium Enterprise). To heck with it.
• perfectly good weather-stripping that we don’t need;
• tennis balls faded to grey;
• decorative Christmas twigs spray-painted a garish gold that have left sparkly droppings everywhere they’ve been for the last five years; and
• my e-subscription to the World Intellectual Property Organizations’s SME Newsletter. Every month when this periodical arrives in my in-box, I file it under “To Read” and feel a pang of failure for never, ever actually reading it. (SME = Small & Medium Enterprise). To heck with it.
De-Cluttering my Daughter's Desk
I am sitting at my daughter's desk, attempting to cure her computer of a nasty virus. There is a lot of waiting involved in this task, as the computer chugs through virus scans and multiples re-boots. My daughter is much like her father, filing things by the 'pile' method. Her desk is littered with a diverse collection of objects: fish food, eyeglass cleaner, three vampire books, lip gloss, homework that was due three months ago, a card from a board game, a scattering of markers, some of which actually have lids. It is next too impossible for me to sit here and not do something about this. My mind automatically sorts and categorizes: recycle, garbage, belongs elsewhere, needs repair. Perhaps I have read one too many books about de-cluttering. I begin to make piles. I throw out the gum wrappers, take the empty milk glass to the kitchen. By the time I have fixed her computer, I will have cleared her desk, too. "Thanks, mom!" she'll say and give me a hug. She'll have a fresh glass of milk in her hand that she'll set down on the freshly cleaned surface. She'll grab a scrap of paper for making notes. She may even pull a half-dead marker out of the trash. And so it goes. A symbiotic relationship, no?
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