Monday 1 January 2018

New Year blues




Our grand daughter was thrilled to be opening presents.
Anyone's presents.
The more the merrier.
The contents? Well they were not really the point of the exercise.
It was the moment of mystery that held her in thrall.

I received many lovely gifts too,
but the sighting of this blue glass gem on a beach that normally
only yields white and green was absurdly thrilling.
I felt as though I had won the lottery.

And yet and yet.
The glass once dry and cached with all the hundreds of other pieces indoors,
has lost some of its lustre. 
The magical feeling of acquisition has faded.

Where does this pull towards possession come from?
It seems to start so early.
And the longer it lasts, the older I get, the more complicated it is 
to shuck off the weighty legacy.

I had a waking dream nightmare, where I was trying to dispose mentally
of all the items in my house, as if in readiness for an imminent move
to somewhere much smaller than my present abode.
The practical difficulties seemed overwhelming.
And yet so many people have to do just this,
perhaps at a time when they are physically least able to cope.

My parents had a large house which easily swallowed 
in its attics and outhouses
the baggage of a long lifetime, raising a family
and running a nursery school from the premises.
My mother was incorrigible.
'You'll have to deal with all this when I'm gone,' she said laughingly.

And when both parents died within five weeks of each other,
that is exactly what we had to do.
It was haphazard and brutal.
A skip was ordered and house clearance people got very lucky.
There simply wasn't time to make considered decisions.

Today I started my Kondo-ing again.







8 comments:

  1. Me too. It isn't easy, but it's necessary, because apart from the storage problem, I'm beginning to feel oppressed by so many belongings. Time to lighten up! Good luck with it.

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  2. A happy, healthy, joyful new year to you, Lucille, and enjoy your blue sea glass. Its difference in your collection will help fix the day you found it in your mind even if the colour has dimmed. You are so right about choosing the time to select and organise though. Good luck to us all in our endeavours!

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  3. It's a fascinating question 'Where does this pull toward possession come from'. I have come to think of my possessions as passing through my life for a time. Not so weighty. How lucky your children are that you are thinking of them. I will be joining you in Kondoing soom!

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  4. Such a beautiful blue! I think the acquisition urge is innate, probably part of our survival instinct, but its modern manifestation is far from helpful... I'm truly grateful to my parents for having disposed of generations worth of 'stuff' from attics and cellars... and they have pared down their own belongings considerably too. Your children and your future self will thank you Lucille! I'm decluttering again too... but yesterday I forgot that it was meant to be about JOY! Happy New Year Lucille, I hope the only blues will be beautiful ones...

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  5. Ah, I tell myself that I will Kondo once we move to the retirement flat... But not yet. Or, only the stuff I don't like so much. And then there are books...

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  6. We 'downsized' five years ago. I'm hanging onto the rest ...

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  7. Such a beautiful blue! I think the acquisition urge is innate, probably part of our survival instinct, but its modern manifestation is far from helpful... I'm truly grateful to my parents for having disposed of generations worth of 'stuff' from attics and cellars... and they have pared down their own belongings considerably too. Your children and your future self will thank you Lucille! I'm decluttering again too... but yesterday I forgot that it was meant to be about JOY! Happy New Year - I hope the only blues will be beautiful ones...
    (Second attempt - blogger still doesn't want me to leave comments!)

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  8. We collect sea glass - for my niece - who wants to craft an angel.
    We get the fun of seek and find.
    She will get a second layer of pleasure.

    My head says about a quarter less stuff in our house, would be comfortable. Sigh. Picking and letting go of that quarter is out of my comfort zone.

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