Stuff

And more stuff. Having recently moved we have been managing stuff. Lots of it! More than I thought possible. There was the garage attic, cavernous, deceptively roomy, lurkingly mean in the amount of stuff stashed there!

And the closets, five of them, plus the utility room, garage (not counting the attic). To say nothing about the kitchen cabinets.

Now there’s an issue. Our kitchen has a ‘butler’s pantry’, an interesting aggregation of upper cabinets repeated in the same fashion as lower cabinets with a shallow counter top separating the uppers and the ‘lowers’.  We used them for storing china, extra serving plates and dishes, plus lots of dry goods with long shelf life. [Note: shelf life is a misnomer; ours was years, far longer than the admonitions printed on the boxes and cans!]

Along the way, over a 20-year time span, more than serving dishes and dry goods found their way into the butler’s pantry. Let’s see, candles, cigarette lighters (for the candles, don’t you know?), odd and various photos too dear to discard, but too unrelated to our lives to truly save, a collection of shoe strings, strings and packing ties. Oh yes, some Brasso, silver cleaner, the odd shaped vase too tall to fit anywhere else…well you know the sort of things one has to save for future use. Lots of little things.

Space to store stuff is a luxury. When you don’t know what to do with something you look for a cranny or nook perfect to embrace it. When found it is safely stashed. All’s well with the world! The mind resumes a peaceful state.

But when no such space can be found, the search begins in earnest and resolve is made to clean out some junk to make room for the newest treasure. Only the resolve is empty and the junk never seems to be tossed.

Until, that is, you prepare to move to a new home. That’s when all past resolve and good intentions loom large. We didn't do it then; we must now.

As I write this piece I’m sitting in my well intentioned new library-study. A wall of books, a corner secretary nearly 100 years old, a mirror or two, counter height work desk perfect for two of us to perch at with computers, and some open space and a closet to ruminate with the books. A good place to write. A good place to track household expenses. A neat place to organize the mind and set to work.

Only all is not well in the new space. The book cases have only a scattering of books so far, and countless cartons of same are stashed temporarily in my daughter’s garage several suburbs away. Meanwhile the book shelves sport several boxes of indeterminate contents still awaiting a new stashing place. In other words, junk seeking a new resting site.

I've managed to clear out the new closets of bags and boxes. Shelving is now assigned too much stuff; hanging rods are crammed full of clothing we probably won’t wear. So culling the unused and unlikely wearable is still a task to do.

At the old place the garage still needs to be cleaned out and a very odd vase or art piece or two remains in the attic. All of the closets are now empty. But not the rooms. Corners remain catchalls for remaining items we totally don’t wish to own anymore. So the arduous task of moving stuff from one room to another, and finally from the second floor to the first begins in earnest. Then it is the migration of stuff from the first floor into the garage.

The garage is now the staging area: to save and move; to save and store; to give to family; to donate to charities; to trash. Yet other piles await sorting. What are they? Five computer cords, two extension cords, no fewer than six power strip cords, and an assortment of electronic fittings that have no home or equipment with which to mate. Homeless and orphaned this stuff seems to grow dust, grow presence and assume a rightful position of power.

Power. Control. Order. Management, or not.

Those are the true elements of owning stuff and containing their disruptive influences. Yet mostly we don’t. We gladly allowed them into our lives and then, in sheer terror, we fail to make decisions needed to control the hideous growth of stuff.

What to do? In our case we learned family and friends do not want the extra doo dad we don’t want either. How come we didn't say no 20 or 30 years ago, too?  Ah well, it’s too late for that kind of thinking.  No, we have to come up with a solution.

And we did. The Discoveries Resale Shop in Warrenville gladly took several carloads of stuff from our shaking hands. Grateful, we drove home to reload. Lovingly they accepted our treasured stuff for their shelves or sale bins. Hopefully they will make faster decisions about our stuff than we did! Else they will be plagued with another generation of self perpetuating mounds of stuff.

Funny, each time I enter Discoveries their shelves and display racks are clean and orderly and not reproducing more stuff. All seems well. Perhaps there is a demand for our stuff after all?  Some people need our stuff in their lives and they actually buy it? What a relief.

Discoveries serves the community in many ways. It receives your unwanted and unneeded stuff for re-use by those who do need the very same stuff. At the same time people of lesser means are able to afford needed stuff while the shop makes enough money to subsidize the many charitable services of the Warrenville Youth and Family Services.  Good work is done by all.

And it is all possible because we lost our battle to control and manage stuff!

Now in our new home I fervently hope and pray that the battle will be more successful this time around. One can only hope. Such is the stuff of dreams. Perhaps this time they will come true?

March 28, 2014