Downsizing

This idea of downsizing has been haunting me for a long time. As I get closer to the big 80, it just has to be done however my ability to procrastinate far exceeds my need to do certain things, one of which is downsizing.  I like to collect things, pretty things, practical things, meaningful things.  I always have and always will.  I have things from my early childhood that I have saved because it reminds me of my growing and the people and places that were very important tome.  I wear a Miraculous Medal around my neck to this day.  It was given to me by my grandmother on my 12th birthday.  A Miraculous Medal is a pendant with a raised figure of the Virgin Mary, a very Catholic piece of jewelry believed to protect us from evil.  The day she gave it to me she was very excited. She had it blessed by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen who was a friend of my dad’s.  She had me turn around and she clipped the chain to the back of my neck and told me never to take it off.  66 years later and I have never gone a day without it around my neck.  It is like part of my body. I never take it off cause I always listened to my grandmother.  She and I were close because every Sunday for years I would go to her apartment and watch her favorite show with her.  Hopalong Casadeetch was her favorite and she always had homemade treats ready for me to eat during the show.  I have other stuff like that too. In my basement I have a collection of model railroad paraphernalia worth a lot of money that I have collected over the decades.  It is a collection that started very early on.  My dad bought my brother, who was 8 years older than I, his first Lionel prewar model train.  Back then they were all metal.  When I came along 8 years later I got my Lionel train set from my dad but it was plastic by then.  My dad made a large platform for our layout which covered half the living room floor and every year the three of us would create a beautiful town for our trains to run past. Because my brother and I were so different in age we were never very close but at Christmas every year the three of us would work together to set up our Christmas village for everyone to play with.  When I was graduated from college and bought our first house, I took claim to all the boxes in the attic and set them aside for my family to develop our own village,  Later on I devoted an entire bedroom to a raised train layout and played with it for years.  Even as a kid I collected things.  My dad built a floor to ceiling bookcase in an alcove in my room.  I wasn’t much of a reader but those shelves were filled with ceramic dogs and cats, plastic figurines of people in their traditional national garb.  That kind of thing always fascinated me.  As I got bigger and older so did the things I collected. For my graduation from college my brother got me an original water color painting from a young Long Island artist.  I was hooked.  Now I have a collection of about 125 original watercolors that I collected over the years.  Every trip to Europe usually increased my collection by one or two original paintings of Italy, France, Wales, Spain and Portugal. I am out of wall space in my house now so a lot are still sitting on the floor of an unused bedroom upstairs.  I won’t even tell you about my 250 plastic Santas from the 1950’s and 60’s that come up from the basement every December to adorn my mantel.  My last occupational adventure was an antique shop in Vermont where I found this incredible papier mache Jazz Band that I just could not pass up!  I am hopeless I know.

You can see where I am going with this.  As my next birthday is speeding toward its arrival which actually puts me living in my 80th year I have begun to seriously think about what will happen to all my stuff.  I have furniture that has followed me from house to house to inn and house again.  I saw first hand through my antique business that brown furniture had fallen out of favor.. Brown meaning original wood color. People are now painting the beautiful brown furniture with milk paint or chalk paint or other new paint varieties because the brown was what old people had. And shortly after the store started to catch on Covid struct and ended that chapter of my retail experience.  I have some beautiful pieces of furniture from my dad and mom’s house that no one will want.  I ask my kids and they roll their eyes as they do with so much of my stuff.  I do think my son will probably claim all the train stuff and both of them have a few favorite paintings they will keep but that is about it.  Although recently I have noticed new collections popping up in my daughter’s house so there is hope. I do have to go about downsizing all these things so my kids don’t have to be burdened with it all when I pass?  And this is without even mentioning clothes. I have teacher clothes upstairs in a closet.  They include pants that can’t be zipped, dress shirts with 17 inch necks that I can no longer button, I have a beautiful new suit that i cannot even button the jacket.  So accepting the fact that these clothes can no longer fit I decided this would be a good place to start the downsizing process.  There are all kinds of clothes drops around the community so that makes things easy….HA!  I started going through the pockets of my pants and jackets checking to make sure there is no money and then folding them neatly and putting them into plastic garbage bags. So far so good.  Next, down to my dressers and closet in my bedroom.  I have a lot of jeans that no longer fit. For years I was a 30 waist but now I can no longer fit into a 32 inch waist unless it has a stretch waist band.  But to donate, I first have to try them on, check the pockets for money, fold neatly and place in those garbage bags.  Same with the shirts, but the folding is a real pain.  Then there are the sweaters and sweatshirts that I love and do I really want to get rid of them?  I’m just not sure, but I have done enough for one day and I’ll do some more tomorrow……if tomorrow ever comes. I failed to mention that trying on pants is no longer easy. I used to be able to stand up and put my pants on quickly,  Now I either have to sit down to put them on or hold onto furniture while I put one leg in, turn around, hold onto the dresser with my other hand and put my other leg in.  This takes time.

Whenever my son comes home I try to get him to take a few moments and walk with me through the house to see if there is anything he would like to take now or later, to which he usually replies, “Nah!”  I have a few paintings of trains I think he will want and with my daughter there are a few things she wants.  I have some decorative delft plates she likes and some family china but the one thing she definitely lays claim to is my aunt’s piano bench because my aunt would attempt to teach her to play the piano.  The bench seat has a pretty embroidered flower bouquet on it.  Jennie valued her time with my aunt whenever she came from Pennsylvania to visit or we went there.  When you think about it there is so much stuff that is cherished by people that will wind up in a garbage dump, a thrift shop or yard sale or just discarded.  Our lives come down to a pile of stuff that was once cherished and now is pushed aside and has no place to go. When I had the antique shop I used to get upset when someone would bring things in to sell and set up their booth and somewhere in the booth was a basket or bowl filled with old photos of people’s lives- wedding photos, baby pictures, family gatherings, graduations, you name it.  Special important events in those families’ lives. No one ever goes through the baskets, no one ever buys old photos of people they don’t know.  Aren’t there other family members left that should keep these old photos for posterity sake.  Don’t get me started!  There is a lot more that I could say but I am picking my daughter up to go to an estate sale before it closes..

Letting Go

George reminds us that over our lifetime we have accumulated a variety of inanimate objects that were or are still, significant to us but not so much to those who will inherit them.  Thus, those of us in our final years are faced with the conundrum of what to do with this “stuff”… as well as when.

Recently, AARP published an article entitled, “AARP Smart Guide to Decluttering” – 39 strategies on how to donate, ditch, and downsize the things filling up your home.  The premise is that like a diet, where we lose weight only to regain it over time, purging and accumulating also seem to be a constant work in progress.  Therefore, they suggest we begin with a shift in our mindset.  That is we have to dig deep inside to agree that we honestly want to reduce the amount of our stuff before we commit to beginning the process.  I like this step as it reminds me that there are times when I begin a project because it seemed like a good idea at the time but later I replace it by something else that catches my attention.  If I had made it a conscientious choice based on what was truly important to me, I would be more likely to maintain my commitment to it rather than move on to something else.  From personal experience with such matters I would add an additional step to increase the chances of success.  I find that asking someone I trust to check in with me on a regular basis helps keep me accountable.  Knowing my friend, partner, or daughter would be asking me how my decluttering work is going adds another layer of responsibility to my task at hand.  

When I moved in 2021, I seriously began this process.  I offered friends and relatives to take things I no longer needed, I scheduled furniture pick up with Habitat for Humanity, I donated unwanted clothes to the local church which had a “Goodwill” like store to help the less fortunate, I brought items to the recycling center, and as a last resort, I filled a large dumpster with things that remained but weren’t coming with me.  This was a huge effort and a great start.

When I bought my new home in 2023 I found that I still had more than I needed or wanted as well as some furniture and decorations that either didn’t fit or I replaced.  Many of these things I donated to neighbors, contractors who did work on my house, and new friends, and donated items to The Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity. Some of furniture and fixtures remain in my basement waiting for me to find new homes for them.

Our aging generation is growing and the challenge faced by our children/family members of getting rid of the stuff we will leave behind is increasingly daunting.  I can’t help but think, what if?  What if there were an agency that was designed to assist the elderly in the entire process of going through their things, deciding what needs to be repurposed or disposed of, and making the arrangements to do so?  Perhaps just putting this idea out there might lead to some additional resources down the road.

For now I think long and hard before I add anything to my home collection.  If I choose to do so I look to take something away and all the while, I keep in mind how much I have and can still let go of while my partner helps me keep this conversation alive.

“Letting go of items that no longer serve you is freeing.”  

– Author Unknown

A Festival of Things

I’m late to the party… after a sojourn to the north country without computer, I’m just catching up on George’s post and Hen’s rejoinder. 

Geo voices something I think we all struggle with: what happens to the objects we enjoy when we’re no longer around to enjoy them? In addition, the sad truth is that objects we enjoy may not have the same meaning to others – so what do we do with them? George confronts the dilemma, doesn’t quite come up with a solution, and then heads out to corral some more objects.

Believe it or not, this makes sense to me.

Look, most normal folks gather ‘things’ for at least several major reasons:

1. Gain: these are commodities to trade, sell, or give away
2. Use: items stockpiled as ingredients for future projects
3. Souvenirs: placeholders for memories of individuals or powerful experiences
4. Beauty: to surround our existence with inspirational art, literature, or music

Knowing George, he is not focused on Gain or Use. He often talks about having his father’s money clip and the Lionel trains of his youth. He also describes his many collections, including cityscapes by various artists, as well as the personal experience of interactions with the artists. For Geo, the beauty of the object and its significance to his relationship with the owner or maker is a data point of joy. I get that. Why not surround yourself with a symphony of objects? It seems autobiographical. Matthew Kelly writes that truth, beauty and goodness are the only things people never get bored with. Why not search after more object’s d’art?

Okay, but what constitutes ‘too much stuff’? I’d say that varies. Possibly, you have too much, when the sheer volume prevents enjoyment of the individual pieces. But maybe the collection is the gestalt – the interlocking puzzle of elements that defines your world. 

Now you have curated a collection, do you continue to add to it as your perspective changes? Of course!

Years ago, I got some advice from Mirni Kashiwa, an esteemed lover of the arts. In her household, they had a tradition of revolving the artwork, in order to focus on various objects and see them afresh. She did not discard her art, but rather archived pieces. It reminds me that you can both be reconnected with a strong memory and also come away with a new meaning by resampling earlier saved objects.

But life is more temporary than things. Our objects will outlast us – even if they are discarded. George’s sadness to see old photographs in a junk store represents our difficulty in accepting our transitory nature. It is not the things themselves, but the significance to the person that is now removed or discounted. I have no answer for that. That we — and memories of us — will evaporate is the hardest truth to accept.

Hen suggests a variety of approaches to assist in managing the disposition of household collections. I like the idea of having an agency to assist people in finding homes for treasured objects – or maybe just ‘stuff’. It goes further than recycling – it’s reassigning. An artist friend’s family arranged a ‘retrospective’ show of his art and then invited people to take pieces that they admired. A little part of Steve went away with everyone that knew him. That would personally make me happy to arrange such an experience for my collections: a festival of things!

Collecting Peace, by Susan Noyes Anderson from her website: susannoyesandersonpoems.com

Collecting is a testament
to life already lived –
a witness of the future
still in store.

The past holds value far beyond
the grave in which it lies;
we are wraith-ed in peace and yet left
wanting more.

Our ghosts inhabit weathered woods,
etched glass, revolving clocks –
every tick marks a beginning
and an end.

So we gather warm and lovely things
to comfort and surround,
ground ourselves in new tomorrows
with old friends.