dining room cabinet...after
Everyone has different goals when organizing their houses. And likewise, everyone has different attitudes toward “stuff”. I have two cousins who were in clean-out mode last summer, and they couldn’t have been more different. Mary’s mother and brother had died in 2019 and she inherited the family summer cottage. Her brother, and to some extent even her mom, were hoarders. Mary is anything but! I’m sure she had been itching to clean out cluttered spaces for years, but she is also very respectful and deferential. She knew that though the cottage had been placed in her name, that it still was a family home. She wouldn’t even consider throwing any of their things away while they were alive. It was actually almost three summers after their deaths before she had the emotional bandwidth to really go after it. But last summer she was throwing things away with a ruthless abandon.
On the other hand, my cousin Susie was downsizing from a home that she and her husband had lived in for decades. They had a lot to go through, particularly paperwork. And Susie intended to just throw away any tax records and papers over seven years old, but found out the hard way that every piece of paper needed to be gone over. In one of her first purges, she had accidentally thrown away the title to an older car that her grown daughter now possessed. Without the title, reregistering or selling the car became an ordeal. After that Susie was bogged down in going through each box meticulously. On a strict timetable, I know she moved some boxes to her new city, that she will have to continue to purge.
After last weeks’ post, my friend Gale told me about her own downsizing efforts when she moved 12 years ago. She said her heart would swell with joy with each empty shelf.
My goal is not emptying shelves…not yet. My efforts lean more toward gently divesting and ultimately organizing and curating what I have. This dining room cabinet is an example. I didn’t take any “before” photos, but I took everything out and separated what I would no longer use from those things that I knew I would or even thought that I might. The placemats and cloth napkins are rolled neatly in boxes. But there are also books of brainteasers that we used with our children when they were in grade school through high school. We used to do family nights (Making Sundays Special) with them on Saturdays, and this usually included some short family liturgy. This year when Ash Wednesday rolled around, Dave had an idea for a family activity to do with our grandsons and their parents at dinner time. He organized his part and then asked if I could write a short liturgy that could include even the littlest. I didn’t have to! I had just organized the cabinet, so I knew that all our old liturgies were in loose-leaf notebooks on the bottom shelf. God sighting!
I know that one of the upper shelves still looks anything but neat. But for Christmas I received some very cute state drinking glasses that fit perfectly with my antique postcard collection. I’ve arranged them in a display, added a light and take great delight in having a place where I can see the postcards every day.
Whatever motivates your cleaning out, whatever your personality bent, I give you permission to do it in your own way and your own time. But I encourage you that Lent is a perfect time to give something up.
Love, Liz
