Letting Go of Stuff

Another book I’ve been reading recently is The Joy of Less. The author, Francine Jay, makes a good case for a minimalistic lifestyle. She talks about how the more stuff we accumulate, the more cluttered our lives and minds become. She has some great ideas on how to declutter the home, like when you approach an area (be it junk drawer or living room), you should empty it completely before you decide what to put back in… the idea being that even if you think you want to keep a certain object, seeing it out of it’s place can sometimes give you fresh perspective on it. That makes good sense, I think.

I’ve already emptied several drawers and a dining room shelf, putting back only objects that are “useful or beautiful”. I don’t think of myself as someone who is attached to things at all — “if the house burns down, all I want is the photo albums, and I’m happy,”…

This is who I thought I was, but I was surprised at the pull some of the stuff I pulled off that shelf/out of that drawer. Things that were neither useful, nor beautiful… as if the people who gave me these things would feel a tremor in the cosmos if I didn’t keep them safely wrapped in paper in a box in the garage.

I think what’s really going on here is that I’m afraid I might start to forget those people if I don’t have those things around to remind me of them… and it’s not just gifts from people who have passed on, like all the knicknacks given to me by my grandmothers. It’s the handprint card made by 6-year-old Sam, or the plaster cast of a little hand made by 8-year-old Kate. I want to remember those people at those ages!

So here’s something I’ve been thinking I could do: For mementos that live in boxes: how about taking photos of them, arranging the photos in book form (via snapfish.com, apple.com, etc) alongside photos of the person they’re associated with… then giving them away to others who will actually use/enjoy them? Now I’ve got a small book that takes little space and that I’ll actually look at to remind me of my Grandmothers, and the lady down the street with the porcelain collectibles is happy, too! Win/Win!