ILLUSTRATION BY KAREN SHANGGUAN
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I’ve been trying to be a minimalist. I bought the books (which I will now be getting rid of), and watched the YouTube speeches. I’m not an extreme minimalist: I’m not willing to narrow my wardrobe to nine items, give up mascara and reduce my furniture to two chairs and a bed. But I’m trying to make do with a lot less. They say that less stuff equals happiness, less stress, less cleaning, more money saved, more space in my house, more time for other things and younger-looking skin. Okay, I made that last one up.
I should mention that I’m a habitual declutterer from way back. Raising three kids and moving five times in 30 years meant that I’d already cleared out a fair amount of outgrown clothes, old toys and broken toasters. But now our nest was almost empty and we’d finally put down roots in our “forever house.” I was ready to seriously lighten my material load and embrace the less-is-more school of thought.
My wardrobe seemed like a good place to start, so I cleared out my closet and held every item up to scrutiny: Did it fit? (Yes, more or less). Did it suit my current lifestyle (Would decluttering and walking the dog be a lifestyle?) Did I love it? (No.) But … it would do for around the house, and nobody would see it under my winter coat, anyway. Mmmm. This was going to be harder than I thought. Maybe I’d start with the rest of the house. So I shut my bedroom door firmly and went downstairs. Remembering the advice I’d read in those minimalist books, I randomly picked up objects and asked myself if it “sparked joy.” Was a wicker basket or a casserole dish with a broken lid expected to do this? Joy seemed elusive indeed as I dithered about all the things that had found their way into our house over the years.
How about my books? I loved my book collection, but was I really planning to reread my university history textbooks, or the collection of literary essays from my brief stint in the Jane Austen Society? Maybe someone else would enjoy them, I told myself. Someone who shares my interest in obscure historical details. Eventually, I divided my books into Will Read Again (maybe. Keep just in case) and Definitely Get Rid Of. That wasn’t too bad, so I moved on.
As I emptied drawers and pondered endlessly on what to let go of, wondering if I might just need “it” again one day, my husband looked on in patient resignation. His personal contribution to our household clutter was little more than a box of free T-shirts and coffee mugs with various logos, a reproduction Brady Bunch lunch box, and a set of Wizard of Oz Pez dispensers, which he was oddly reluctant to give up. “Don’t throw THOSE out! They might be worth money some day!”
Delving into boxes in the basement, I came across items I’d forgotten we even had. I’d ended up with a lot of my parents’ possessions, and in the pain of bereavement I’d stashed everything into containers to deal with another time. But the time had come, and sorting through my life’s accumulations, I was forced to make decisions about what truly mattered to me: my parents’ wedding photos, yes. Grainy landscape pictures from a long-forgotten holiday, not so much.
I realized that I had so many things that what I really treasured was lost in the crowd. Yes, I loved Grandma’s Limoges china and I have happy memories whenever I use it, but she would forgive me, I was sure, for donating her ghastly Edwardian blue glass fruit bowl. Our kids’ primary school ceramic projects presented a special problem (“Awwww, she made that whale in Grade 2!”), but after gaining permission to let them go I did so with a clear conscience.
It was slow going, but I persevered and filled bags with duplicate picture frames, rusty cake tins and knick-knacks inherited from who knows where. As the shelves cleared and the closets gained breathing room, I did indeed feel lighter and happier, like a burden had been lifted. Every trip to the charity shop gave me a feeling of accomplishment as I imagined someone snatching up my discarded treasures and enjoying them with fresh enthusiasm. I no longer needed a reproduction Victorian wick-trimmer to complete my life, but somebody else might really appreciate it!
After heading to the charity shop for the umpteenth time and noticing the endless piles of other people’s discards, I got to thinking. We all (well, many of us) have way too much stuff. That much is clear. We are all busy scurrying around trying to get rid of things to make our own environments more pleasing or to make room for newer, better stuff. So where will all our collective belongings end up? Some of it (maybe) will be museum-worthy antiques 100 years from now. The rest will be, well, just junk, destined for the landfill.
As a wise person once said, when you are thinking of throwing things away, there is no such place as “away.” So I thought, wouldn’t it be a good idea if we could all stop making new stuff and just use what we have? Organize a giant redistribution of everything that is on Earth right now, so that everybody has enough to live with, and nobody has too much or too little? Pie-in-the-sky thinking, I know. But I’m afraid that one day we’ll run out of room on this beleaguered planet, and that my grandkids’ children will be waist deep in discarded Happy Meal toys and consignment shop rejects, not to mention every single thing we are currently throwing directly into the garbage.
So that’s why I’m trying to be a minimalist. I’m saying “No” to what I don’t really need and enjoying what I already have in my newly spacious and organized house, even the Pez dispensers.
Jenny Dunlop lives in Hamilton, Ont.