This afternoon my husband and I spent our second stint in the downstairs library in our house, cleaning. My brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and niece are coming to visit, and that’s just the kick in the butt we’ve needed to clean up. So we spent more than two hours yesterday, and another two today, cleaning out stuff.
What accumulates is amazing…stuff from the last clean-up that we just couldn’t get to, stuff that I moved home after I left my position at the Unitarian Universalist Association, stuff we didn’t quite know what to do with, art supplies, things of my mother’s that we didn’t get rid of — or that I couldn’t bear to part with — and more.
Ben and I are almost always guaranteed to approach any assignment differently – our brains are just wired differently — but we almost always end up at the same point. So finally, at the end of our clean-up, there was a pile of books on the floor that neither of us wanted. A very large pile. Our church MayFair (a giant white elephant sale) is coming, and we have some friends who also may want some of these books. And there’s a trashcan filled with things we didn’t think anyone else would want. We got most of the stuff cleaned out. Not all – but probably more than ninety percent.
We’re both trying to be a little clearer about what stuff we need, and what we don’t. If we can’t bear to throw it out because it was my mother’s, Ben’s first wife’s, or one of our favorite childhood books (and we each held on to one of those) it stays. The stringed dulcimer Ben made long ago, which doesn’t quite work but which he can’t quite part with, stays too. And so does the copy of “The Prophet” that my parents gave my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Lou many years ago. But the old fund accounting textbooks of mine are on their way out the door. And the duplicate copies of some lovely meditation manuals…and the cassette tape recording of Tales from Lake Wobegon, even though we like Garrison Keillor (and we still have a way to play the darned things too!).
Stuff is part of our lives. It’s not that we’re on a voluntary simplicity kick (although I’ve got no objection to that at all) — but company’s coming. And too much stuff is just not a good thing.
Morning Stars Rising 