The Clutter Goes

I hate clutter. I have spent this week, once again, de-cluttering my wardrobe and my pantry and the desk and shelves and cupboards and both barns. As I have said to you a number of times I came to America with two suitcases of books, and journals and cameras and paintings wrapped in my clothes.  So anytime my possessions raise themselves above that benchmark I feel a small worry of panic begin to edge itself into my gut.

Of course I don’t touch Johns things – they are not my department. But my clutter has to stay within strict parameters.

Have I written about this before.? I think about it so often as I work that I feel I must have written it or at least said it aloud. In the older of the old days people had very little.  A couple of precious pots to cook in, a few changes of work clothes and a good set of clothes with a white shirt for funerals and weddings, probably your own funeral and wedding, hopefully not in that order.  A few precious books, maybe a rolled up painting, some writing materials, a picture of your love and a good horse and all his associated harness and tack.

Then there was a period of rampant gathering. Our parents and their parents with the memory of such previous frugality and the surge of mass produced cheaper goods, hauled everything they could into their houses and shone it up and set it on the mantel or into large glass fronted cupboards.  Then there was cheap plastic and crockery and massively mass produced books. After a thousand years of only a few treasures to a family now we have treasure amassed around us that some rooms in some homes are packed to the ceilings with such long forgotton possessions.

People hoard material things against fear. Stacked up against loneliness.

Like pigs who find a good feed and so begin gorging, because the evolution in their bodies reminds them that the hard times might be just around the corner, lay in some fat now.

I know people who have inherited all these things.   I hear  again  and again from older people – what do we do with this ?- our children don’t want these things? – they are bewildered. My generation and the one that follows me has slimmed right down, we have not reverted to a trunk and a rocking chair and a saddle bag but we de-clutter, we try not to be held hostage to Things, refusing to believe that the spirits of our ancestors live in the collections of a hundred match boxes, or sea-shells, or cabbage shredders or  gilt frames without pictures, or scrap books or old bed-heads, or china, or silver. Or even land and houses. We want to be freer-  this is an old need, the need to go walkabout, to move,  to be able to count what we have and what we own. To know where it is all sitting. To lighten up.  All this ‘stuff’ hangs on us like a weight. It is it’s own  fear.  We become unhappy stewards. Holding onto it for the next generation who wants no part of it.

And that is good, isn’t it? That is not a rhetorical question so it deserves a question mark.

Of course it is the stories we should be collecting, the history, the names, and begats. And writing them down for the children.  There is just too much ‘stuff’ to keep up with.  Too many things now, too much. It dilutes the pure magic of an old photograph where you can point to every soul and name them for the children who sit upon your knee.  Then turn that photo over and double check you are right because your grandmother wrote it down for you in fading blunt pencil on the back of the frame.

We have so much now. So many decorations. What really is important to you. What is really important for the next generation of children.

Have possessions taken the place of the old stories?  Am I right though? Or disconnected.  Or is it only me who feels this? Do people put less emphasis on the old things now?  Or are they just buying quickly and discarding faster.  Throwing things into a rubbish pile that if we were forced to keep in our own backyards would reach higher than our houses.  Because nothing lasts now, most of it disposable. Maybe we should be holding on to the old stuff because soon there will be no stuff at all.  That is another thought. No stuff.  Not even printed photographs. Or cups with matching saucers.

I came to America with two suitcases and should my circumstances change I believe I could leave with two.  I would take some books, (one of which would be my current read) my mothers paintings, my heart painting,  two silver and crystal perfume bottles that belonged to my grandmother. My father’s Leica, my current camera, four cups, (two new, two old all handmade) the rare photo of all my children and I together in one place, the photo of John and I when we were 17  – the old ceramic mixing bowl that belonged to  John’s grandmother, my rings, my bangles and my copper pots, and a contact sheet print that I photographed as a child with my fathers camera and printed myself, that details my entire family at a picnic on a summer day in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand – I must have been ten or thereabouts and I have carried that print from country to country all my life since.

That is all I need. My footprints would not be too deep with that as my load. The rest must remain in the stories.

It has always been this way with me. This need to shed. Often I go travelling with two suitcases and when I come home I have packed one of the suitcases into the other – I have shed that much as I travel. Stuff lightens and floats away.

In Nineteen days I will pack my suitcases with parcels and gifts and go a’travelling again. This time to Australia and New Zealand. I will take you with me – my favourite travelling companions.

So keep your fingers crossed that the weather stays settled like this for a while longer.

I hope you have a lovely day.

celi

The book I have just finished: Thirteen Moons – Charles Frazier.

Movie I watched last night: Babettes Feast (and not for the first time).