Black Oak's Daughter

I am the child of children of the Great Depression.  My parents were born in the early 1920’s. My mother’s family lost their house during that time, and my father’s family lived in poverty, a divorce already putting them in a bad position before the downturn.

As a child of my parents, I grew up surrounded by stuff. Mom was a pack rat of epic proportion, Dad, not so much, but he was a saver too.  There was never danger of them losing our house. They paid it off in the first six years they lived in it, the month before I was born, but they still saved everything that might be useful someday.

Dad passed when I was 8 and that triggered some bad things in mom. She proceeded to fill the house to the brim with useless shit. She had been through losing her family home once, and now losing her husband, she had to cling to something, so 25 years of newspapers, magazines, clothes, and thousands of other bits that were once relevant collected in our beautiful house.  There wasn’t a room that didn’t have at least one or two pieces of furniture designed for storage, and packed to the brim.  Mom was big into shelves too, there were shelves everywhere. Some were empty enough to use for sorting things onto, and some were just vertical storage for when the horizontal type was full.

My step father did his best to keep the clutter down, but he knew he had moved into her house, and there were limits as to what he could say. They found a way to live peacefully together though. When mom died after they were together for  14 years, he took great pleasure in bagging and recycling all of those magazines and newspapers.

The only time I ever saw my mother’s house beautiful and clean and EMPTY except for furniture was when we were selling it. I wish I could have afforded to buy it, but I was newly married and broke, and that house in that neighborhood was completely out of the question considering our newlywed budget.

Fast forward into my own life.  I’ve grown up around this immense amount of stuff. The comfort level that I get from it was not the same as mom’s. I don’t NEED it there, but I’m much too comfortable with allowing it to stay. It was, after all, my native environment for many years.

There was a defining moment a couple of years ago that planted the seed of change in my living style though.  Having to decide who gets all your crap after you die will do that for a person.  I got my affairs in order the way I should have, but it’s bugged me ever since.  I’m a single woman, and I have this house that’s just full of clutter and in a couple of rooms, boxes and bags of packrattish stuff that “needs to be gone through someday”

Mom-In-My-Head has lived strong and proud of my clutter.  She’s now being evicted, or at least banished and only brought out for useful stuff, like parties and cooking, and occasionally, sewing. She was good at that stuff.

Last week, I wrote about getting rid of a very large entertainment center/storage unit in my living room.  Many people have asked me what I’m replacing it with, and my answer is “Nothing”.   It occured to me that I now have a room in my house, one room, that once I’m done cleaning it Monday, won’t have anything outside of the ordinary stored in it. I have never had an “ordinary” room. I now strive for “ordinary”.  Nothing huge, overdone, out of place, ugly, or useless will be in that room.

The run down of my new living room is as follows: There will be one 200 year old Chinese antique trunk, trust me, it’s absolutely beautiful. There is also a rattan and glass shelving unit that showcases a beautiful little ceramic village that I have. An antique birdseye maple secretary that houses my mom’s antique dolls, my grandmas folk art, and my blown glass collection on it’s book shelves.  (These are the majority of my “treasures”, I have them all in the one place, and it sounds like a lot, but doesn’t look bad)  The other furniture in that room: one antique end table,  a beige leather sofa, 2 chairs, and a coffee table on an area rug.  No bookshelves, no piles of magazines in the corner, (although there may be a basket of cat toys, but hey, they live here too), a few plants in the big bay window, and maybe a lamp or two.  That’s how a room should be. Not too empty, but not full of crap. Everything fits, works together, and creates an inviting place to come home to, and occasionally entertain friends. I don’t need anything more to fill the space, it was too full to begin with.

This thinking is carrying through to the rest of my house too. I have more than I need, and the Mom-In-My-Head says, so what, organize it, keep it.  The stress that having that much clutter to organize though, along with the fact that most of it is stuff that I no longer care about, is winning the war and I’m now in full on “get rid of it” mode. The only thing that I want left to organize at the end of all of this is the daily mail

The master plan right now, once the living room is done, is to:

• Sort through the clutter, room by room and have the Great Toss/Give-a-Thon 2009,
• move my current bedroom set out to the back garage (it belongs to my best friend, she can come get it if she wants it for her new house, otherwise the garage works for now until I have a bigger master bedroom)
• move the dresser in the spare room into my bedroom
• I’ll move Mom’s blanket chest up to my room where one of the dressers was, and the barrister shelves up to the spare room where the rest of my books are.

That leaves the right amount of furniture in my living space and the basement as Roomie’s living area/my music room.  My piano and keyboards are still down there, along with my music and other related stuff. Most of the rest of what’s there will be gone through and the majority given away.

There is light at the end of this tunnel.

Honestly, now that I’m in this stage of “what the hell do i need all of this stuff for”, I see how neurotic and unhealthy my mother was.  I’m overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that I have and it’s no where near what she had. Wow, I really don’t know how she coped.

Getting each room under control, one at a time, is good for me.  There’s the bonus factor that I’m not embarrassed to have people in my house anymore.  I have never known that feeling before. Between mom’s house, and my packrat ex husband, and ‘not the neatest person on the planet’ daughter, this is the first time that I’ve really had my own environment that I can dictate how full or empty it is. It’s taken me a few years, inbetween surgeries,  working enough to keep my job, and clearning out enough stuff to see what’s left when I’m not exhausted and resting, to get to the point of realizing that I can do this.

Roomie is encouraging me too. He’s got a plan for the living room furniture that I never would have though of that makes complete sense.  He’s a very organized person. It’s a good influence on me.

I was surfing this morning and found this quote. It fits my life right now:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

That speaks to the simplicity and peacefulness that is starting to be a much larger part of my life. Not only in my living areas, but also in the activities that I choose to participate in.

Today, I’m off to the apple orchard after I hit publish on this post, and tomorrow i’ll be cruising the mighty Mississippi, in a paddle wheel riverboat. It will be stunning, it’s fall, the leaves are changing, and the sun will be out for at least part of it.

I have Monday and Tuesday off from work, the house and yard will be in much better shape at the end of those 2 days. I’m looking forward to it.

Peace.

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