The New Year is exactly twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes old as I write this. I have gone back and forth about resolutions, since I know I don't keep them, generally, anyway. But I do have intentions. I want to blog more often. I want to contact my friends more often. I want to simplify my home.
This has been a long time coming. I surround myself w/clutter. Clutter of memories and of hopes. Each object in my house is, if not practical, a memory of a person or place. Some are objects that in some respect are supposed to represent me or my tastes. But that is shallow. I am not my possessions. Many have come to that conclusion far before me, and I've believed it for awhile, but it is really hitting home right now for me how intensely this has come into focus today as I walked through my house, thinking about a families who have lost all their possessions for various reasons.
Besides pictures, there is not one object in my kitchen that I could not live without. I would miss a few things, such as the handcrafted shelf from my aunt that I have had since I was about seventeen or eighteen, but I will always remember that shelf and who it came from and why.
The dining room is a bit more complicated. I love my desk. It is not a roll-top but is fashioned after one. It's big though and I don't work at it. It stores all my projects and paperwork and miscellaneous office products. On it are a wire sculpture of Big Ben, something I bought myself from Target. But I've seen Big Ben. I have pictures. I don't need a cheap, somewhat crooked statue to scream "Look, Jennifer is an anglophile." On the other hand, the CD player is a must--but any CD player with decent volume and bass will do really. I would like to keep my digital picture frame even though I have not used it in probably almost six months. I would like to use it. All my other "stuff" gets in the way of stuff that matters and consumes a lot of my energy.
I have a few other collections in my dining room. I collect little castles. Sand castles but also other miniatures. I've received a few as gifts as people know my tastes, but a few I just picked up at thrift stores. One I bought at Westminster Abbey and another at the Tower of London. Those are the most authentic and the "must keep" type. Similarly, I collect mugs from, mostly, the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. I get those as gifts too and love them all. Each mug I have has a different design. A couple non-Ren-related mugs blend right in--a leather covered beer mug, a goblet I purchased in Wales. A mug from the old Union Station restaurant in Bemidji, Minnesota. Those are all keepers.
Most of these objects reside on two bookcases. I have sorted through my books two times in the last couple of months and I only pulled 10 books or so to get rid of. I have a severe attachment to books, whether I've read them yet or not. There is a wide variety--from general popular fiction and literature to small collection of medieval/U.K. related nonfiction. I have more books upstairs, in my living room, in my bedroom, and packed away in the basement. I simply cannot part with many, but I have vowed to violently purge them before school starts. I'll keep you posted.
The other problem area of the bookcases is the pictures. Picture sit on many of the shelves (in front of the books as there just is not room for them to reside side by side). The problem is that i have more in albums on another shelf, and a dresser full of pictures upstairs in our guest room that I need to sort and put in books yet. I have my daughter's first three months organized and in a book, but the rest are mostly stored on my computer and CDs yet. That is not good because again, this is more important to me than dead lifeless books collecting dust on the shelf. There. That is my motivation to get on this!
The theme continues in each room of the house--daughter's bedroom, my room, linen closet stuffed full of ....well....stuff. What would be lost by losing some of this stuff? Not much. Maybe some level of comfort and ease. Maybe a sense of accomplishment? Look at me and all my stuff. Maybe nothing would be lost and all could be gained. Sense of peace. Sense of direction. Properly aligned priorities. That is my intention for the New Year. I'll start with the books as one should always start with the hardest part.
Wish me luck.
Thursday's Photo
7 years ago
2 comments:
The new year is a good time to look afresh at our lives and the physical ways we express them. I've spent the past seven years studying how otherwise ordinary things become significant as I've worked on OBJECTS AND MEMORY, a documentary film which has been a national prime time special on PBS during the past few months.
A good test of what you'd want to save if your house were on fire is, "Is it irreplaceable?" Objects which seem to embody the spirit of a person, a time, or an experience - whether they have monetary value or not - are precious to us. Especially in these times of uncertainty, it helps to recognize what we are really about, and how we move forward by imbuing certain things with meaning.
By the way, I've been developing an educational initiative as an outgrowth of the work of OBJECTS AND MEMORY. The presentations and workshops explore issues of contemporary history, museum studies, material culture, cross-cultural studies, art, memory, meaning, and value. The themes of this work extend across the humanities - how we navigate through a fragile and chaotic world by using otherwise ordinary things that have become irreplaceable conveyors of identity, experience, and aspiration. For more information go to www.objectsandmemory.org or write to info@objectsandmemory.org.
Though I have no real advice on this, I understand exactly what you're talking about. And I totally agree that one should always start with the hardest part, though I'm really glad video games aren't like that. Thanks for encouraging my blogging habit to come back :) I know that a habit shouldn't need encouragement, but I'm trying to change the way I think about blogging.
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