Out With the Old

 

Out With the Old

By Bill Barksdale, Columnist

As humans we create symbolic milestones for ourselves.  The beginning of the new year is one of the most universal.  It’s an opportunity each year to begin again in some respects.  There’s a tradition that we make “resolutions”, positive goals for personal change.

I just finished reading a book that I picked up at our local book store, The Book Juggler.  Greta Kanne recommended it to me.  It has the, at first, off-putting title of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter.  My mother, who will be 100 this year, is Swedish and was always an obsessive house cleaner.  Maybe that’s cultural.  The author, Margareta Magnusson, dedicated the book “To my five children”.  Now I know why.  My sister and I had to sort through our mother’s house when she and her husband moved into a small apartment.

The first chapter is called Death Cleaning is Not Sad.  In fact, this book is a joy to read and a perfect way to begin a new year.  Much like my own mother, Mrs. Magnusson is a pragmatic gal who describes herself as “between 80 and 100”.  She says her delightful book is about how to “remove unnecessary things and make your home nice and orderly when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet.”  The message is to not leave the accumulation of a lifetime for someone else to clean up.

The added benefit is that while you are living, you also make your own life easier.  After all, “stuff” needs to be cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, repaired, stored (which often costs money), and moved.  In this society we are referred to as “consumers” by government and business.  That’s something unsettling to think about.  It’s almost unpatriotic not buy more stuff.  I bought a lot of exotic cookware some years ago after watching the initial episodes of The Great British Bake Off on TV.  As my collection grew and took over our kitchen, most of it unused, that stuff went to the Senior Thrift Shop still in the original packaging.

I sometimes think fondly of the tiny 20’ x 13’ cabin we lived in many years ago.  It had a second story accessed by a ladder, which served as the bedroom, office and closet.  Our agile MacNab dog could go up and down the ladder.  When he got too old for that a stairway was built for him.  It never occurred to us to build stairs for ourselves.  Our lives were simple then.  There wasn’t room for a lot of clutter, just the necessities. 

Now, many years later, we live in a larger house.  Comfortable, but in need of a good “death cleaning”.  If for no other reason than to make life simpler and get all those unused things into the hands of others who can use them.  When I think of it as “passing them along”, it’s easier to let go. 

Mrs. Magnusson said she starts her decluttering with clothes.  As I went through my closets and drawers I realized there were garments I will never fit into again. There are more “collections” to tackle.  I have a friend who started in her kitchen, getting rid of old spices and cookware.  Margaretta took a year to methodically downsize her large family home room by room after the death of her husband in order to move into a comfortable and affordable two-room apartment. 

Part of death cleaning is organizing the things you find essential so you can find them when you need them.  As I am going through my stuff, I’m finding many duplicates.  What a waste of money.  Sometimes you find that collections can be reduced to one or two items.  The rest, and often all of it, can go.  Many a time collections of pictures include duplicates.  Keep one and dump the rest.  A shredder can become a best friend when sorting and downsizing.  Almost no one needs old bills, invoices or boxes of tax returns that are over three years old.  Shred it! 

There’s an old song that goes “'Tis the gift to be simple, ‘Tis the gift to be free.”  The Desiderata begins “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.”  Both good advice in these challenging times.  One of the gifts of Covid is it’s giving us the opportunity to reevaluate our lives and how we live.  Take a deep breath and let go.  ‘Tis the gift.