The gift-giving season is upon us. People are buying stuff. And so am I.
Which means — ’tis the season to declutter. Time to make room for that garlic roaster and those pickleball paddles you put on your holiday wish list.
Meanwhile, my friends — the ones who’ve been on the planet as long as I have — are doing their best to declutter. They’re systematically gleaning, culling and giving the heave-ho to their earthly belongings.
The kids don’t want all this stuff, my sister-in-law told me over the phone yesterday. Why keep it around for them to sort through when we’re gone?
True, I say. And I’m doing my part here. I’ve lined one side of the garage with boxes and boxes of rejects waiting to go to the Salvation Army.
I Like My Stuff
But — I confess — there’s plenty more where those things came from. Things I’m not ready to part with.
I like my stuff.
Apparently, this is nothing new. By the looks of this story I wrote for the Oakland Tribune back in the 1980s when our children were small, I have a thing for stuff. Which I’ll probably take to my grave.
Sorry, kids.
By Barbara Falconer Newhall, The Oakland Tribune, Sept. 6, 1987
Things. They stay where you put them. They don’t talk back. They don’t upchuck on the Persian rug. Things don’t have to be fed, clothed or diapered. They don’t require thank-you notes or post cards from Tahoe.
They might fade and gather dust, but they are not subject to mosquito bites, splinters, chicken pox or lung cancer.
They don’t invite someone else to the Sock Hop. They don’t divorce you.
Clearly, things have their place in the good life. But last month the time had come to part with a few – just a few – of my things. We were in the midst of a housecleaning frenzy at our house, and by golly I was going to get rid of some of that old stuff.
Getting rid of stuff is easy for some folks. Jon keeps careful track of his school yearbooks, photo albums, chess manuals and 1977-’78 Stanford football programs – and lets it go at that.
Peter, on the other hand, needs his things. He can’t think or play without an object or two gripped in his wide, 6-year-old hands. Waiting in the doctor’s office, he goes wacko if there is nothing on hand to help him act out his dreams of conquest and adventure.
Same with Christina, who agreed to give up her nightly bottle in honor of her fourth birthday. But she would not agree to give up her bottle collection, which is considerable. Not yet.
Peter likes his old koala bear. Christina likes the watercolor she made last week, the one she caught me trying to throw away.
I like my Navajo rugs, my Austrian pottery. I like the pearls my father gave me on my 16th birthday, the bust of Ike I made as a fifth grader, the diary I kept when I was 8, the miniskirt I wore when Jon and I were courting.
Last week, during our cleaning frenzy, Jon and I parted with some things – an American flag with a peace symbol where the stars should be, ten stuffed animals, an incense holder, two vacuum cleaners and a key-chain roach clip.
Every few years I take such drastic action as this. My things, meanwhile, remain steadfast until I am ready to let go. They don’t move to South Carolina and have teenage children I have never met. They don’t cross me off their Christmas card list. They don’t die.
My Disappearing Elders
One by one, the uncles, aunts and grandparents who peopled my childhood are disappearing from this life, like ducks in a shooting gallery.
There was Toto, my grandmother, who smoked, drank and dyed her hair black until she turned 90 and moved into a nursing home. Toto’s main vice after that was the drawerful of candy she kept for visiting great-grandchildren.
“What will the doctors do with her candy?” Peter wanted to know when he heard Toto had died.
My uncle George was a sweet man with a gruff voice. He hunted deer for his children to eat during the sparse Michigan winters after the tourists had gone home to Chicago and Detroit. When I was 6, George made me eat all the peas on my plate.
On my father’s side of the family, over in Scottville, Mich., others are gone – Aunt Emma, Uncle Squawk, Grandma Falconer. Born in 1876, Grandma Falconer used words from another century – such as “’tis” and “’twouldn’t.” she wore a real pince-nez, which she fastened to her updo with a gold chain and hairpin.
Each thing I own represents a person or a moment in my past. If I give away the Mexican blankets, will I forget Jon haggling for them in the mercado? If I let go of the picnic basket my high school best friend gave me, will I forget her? If that blue knit dress goes to the Salvation Army, will I ever see size 8 again?
How about the espresso coffee maker Jon and I so loved the first year of our marriage? The pair of crutches, the ski boots, the two baby potties, the portable crib we bought the day we found out we could adopt Peter?
All day, I sorted through my funky old things, making room for the two boxes I brought back from Michigan in July. My parents had had them since I left home two decades ago. This morning I cut the boxes open.
The Molding Books. The Molding Papers
Inside, amongst the molding books and papers, I found Tony Benton, who died of Hodgkin’s disease. There with Tony, was Professor Ginden, who taught Hemingway and D.H. Lawrence. And Shirley Wagnitz, who was prettier than I in 1953, and Carli Parnall, who was smarter in 1962.
And, what’s that falling out of a crack in the box? My entire college sorority. I studied the photo, carefully marked with everyone’s name for this very moment, decades later, when memory surely would have begun to fail.
Our faces were moist and firm with youth. These were the same sisters who razzed me on my 21st birthday by singing “nine more years till you’re 30.” To us, then, 30 was old age. Forty was oblivion.
Great stuff, I thought, closing up the boxes. I think I’ll keep it all.
© 1987 The Oakland Tribune Reprinted by permission
‘Tis the season to declutter? Or to search for the perfect gift to add to someone’s home? Glass art by Dale Chihuly? Or something wild and crazy from Oakland’s Jingletown?
Great read, Barbara! I had forgotten about Grandma Ruth’s glasses. -Joe
Yes. I was so disappointed when Grandma had to switch from her 19th century pince nez to a pair of 20th century plastic glasses. But she needed to do that because, as I recall, the “pince” was pinching her nose way too much.
We’re living in the same possessions lane, Barbara. Our “Stuff” (capital “S” 😉) is filled with memories and comfort . . . until they’re not . 😮💨 I’ve found that if I’ve given a long-held item a new home, and don’t miss it, I feel so much lighter . . . Why didn’t anyone tell us this decades ago during our buying frenzies?! ☺️😆
Because they were too busy shopping and acquiring!
Hi dear Barbara, I want to know what you are doing with all the photo albums of your kids. And, you had a roach clip – that makes me proud. On the crutches, yes we had crutches. Leah was always getting injured. When she had knee surgery, her bill – an astronomical cost – included something like $14 for the crutches. I called the hospital to dispute the bill of something like $15,000. I wanted a credit for the $14 dollars for the crutches, because I brought hers to the hospital. The hospital did credit us for the $14. Whew. eb
I never got around to putting my photos into albums — after the first three or four albums. But I did faithfully put the envelopes of prints and negatives into shoe box size photo boxes. Every year produced one or two boxes of photos. That has made it pretty easy to get the negatives scanned — easy, but not cheap. So far, I have not had the nerve to toss the original photos and negatives. Give me some time.