The Nature of Things

I really thought the books would make it much harder.

The process of down-scaling isn’t just motivated by the fact that our living space will be extremely reduced for a while.  Yes, it helps to have ‘will this fit into the caravan’ as a constant mental refrain whilst paring down one’s worldly goods, but the space (or lack thereof) isn’t our chief motivation for the Possession Purge.  More and more, the philosophy and spiritual significance of our new adventure as a family has come to the fore in conversations and the endless ‘are we crazy’ analysis that still feels necessary.  Having enough means having a lot less, and we all need to carefully analyse our relationships with Stuff.

Here’s where I thought the fault lines might lie:

Dean:   Tools.  Gadgets.  Doodads and thingamabobs of all descriptions.  Some given to him by his Dad and some bought long ago for reasons lost in antiquity.  Dean prides himself on his ability to fix just about anything, and he’s going to want to keep a lot of things Just In Case they come in useful for fixing things that haven’t broken yet.  Time will tell.

Lynn:    Wool.  Material.  Sewing patterns and knitting patterns and magazines from further back than I’ve been alive. To be fair, Lynn isn’t much of a hoarder and generally travels light.  Of all of us, she as the least to give up because she’s naturally frugal and decidedly pragmatic.  But there’s a shed-load of wool….

Carly:    Got to be the shoes.  And, to a lesser extent, the clothes.  Carly has fabulous taste.  I no longer buy shoes for myself.  I just wear whatever she’s bored with and it’s always much better than anything I would have picked out for myself.  Everything looks good on her, so deciding between one gorgeous ensemble and another is likely to prove a challenge…

Boo:      The fluffies.  For you non-South Africans, I mean her collection of plush toys.  To be fair, I’m dreading this clean out just as much.  Each one has a name.  Each has a history.  A significant number of them were purchased overseas and brought with them exotic tales of their travels when she was little.  Mr Bear disappeared for 6 months and sent Uchenna a postcard from every single place he visited before coming home on Christmas Day with Florence Bear and his inlaws (Papa Bear and Mama Bear) in tow.  Since then, they’ve had four bear babies, so the Bear family alone is substantial!  And then there’s Crush the turtle,Billy the camel, Big Bear, Bethy Bulldog and Gordon (a Capetonian Dog) and Dublin (an Irish Bear) and Rosie (an Italian Tortoise)…..you know what?  I don’t think I can deal with this right now…

Ethan:  Hmmmm…tough one.  All the Lego will come with us, so that’ll make him happy.  The construction toys will be harder.  All the remote control cars, races, diggers, TLB’s, bulldozers and boats will have to be gone through and decisions – hard ones – made.  I foresee a trade: more automated toys and less clothing, if possible.

Jen:   The books.  Quite simply, I didn’t think I’d be able to get rid of all the books.  The prospect of facing a library full of old friends and new worlds just waiting for me on their beautiful pine shelves seemed a bridge too far.  That library was a dream of mine, in another life.  So much love went into making it a reality.

I had to tackle the books first.  As per my last post, we’ve decided to fill the time between flurries of activity with the process of collating our belongings and deciding what goes and what stays. Having a moving date has put a definite timeline to our efforts, and we all made a start last week.   Lynn tackled the wool and the material collection, Dean made a start on the garage and the kids played ‘Does This Fit Me’ with their wardrobes.  I decided to tackle the books, with the idea that if I could manage that, everything else would be easy.

I expected them to put up a lot more resistance than they did.  I went in steeling myself for a fight.  At the very least, a chorus of ‘but we changed your life’ from the Julian May Galactic Milieu Trilogy…

Silence.  A sunny day with light streaming into the room, reflecting the dust eddies as I ran my fingers along spines and drank in the smell of them.  My books.  Some have been with me since before I could read, languishing on the shelves of my parents’ house until I was ready for them, and then forming the base of my collection, which has followed me from place to place and home to home for over 20 years.  My books.  Now over 1000 of them.  Many well worn from re-reading, but just as many, as yet, unread.  Unread and waiting – biding their time until my schedule allows.    Too many, I’m afraid, and it was that simple realisation that saved me from the anticipated angst.  The sight of all those unread books threw a harsh spotlight on the glaring paradox of my current situation: owning a home large enough to have a library means never having enough time to read anything in it.  How daft is that?

I went through the shelves systematically, removing all those tomes that either cannot be replaced or have such sentimental value that I cannot bear to be parted with them.  The result was a much smaller pile than I expected.  Serendipitously, good friends of ours came over that evening and I let them have at the remainder.  They left with four huge bags of books and all my undone puzzles.  I had a pang or two, watching well-loved titles disappear, but consoled myself with the thought that a) they’re going to a good home and b) I can always visit.  In particular, much of my LGBT literature will be entering the service of young, queer comrades-in-arms who probably need it far more than I do now. That gladdens me.

Now our home has a new rule: no visitor is allowed to leave without first checking to see if there’s anything they fancy in the library.  When time comes to move, I’ll pack up the remainder and donate them to the local AIDS Trust bookshop. They can have their new adventure, and we’ll have ours.

It’s been an interesting process, contemplating the nature of things.  Since reading her delightful book, I tend to subscribe to the Marie Kondo idea that possessions should serve a purpose in your life – be it utility, sentiment or aesthetics – and that anything that doesn’t needs to be released to have meaning for someone else, elsewhere. What I didn’t expect was to discover just how little sentiment plays a role when one has a clear idea of what kind of life one is trying to live. I could hold on to a large number of books I’ll never read again, just because of the sentiment attached to where I bought them, where I was when I first read them or who gave them to me.  However, when weighed up against the desire to rid myself of the weight of unnecessary possessions, I find that I don’t need to keep the books to honour those memories.  The books I’ve read are as much a part of me as the places I’ve visited and the people I’ve met.  I don’t need to have them with me or to own them to have the value of them.  Watching them disappear off the shelves, thereby freeing me of the need to have shelves at all, has made me feel lighter.  I foresee the dispersing of the rest of my belongings eliciting a similar response.

Except the fluffies.  Oh, hell…..