The Stuff Project

Day 365: The Stuff Project

FIN!

Today, I'm getting rid of the stuff project, and my blog. I'll have time to knit dishcloths, and make purses out of neckties, and plant tomatoes. I'll have more time for yoga, and cooking, and keeping a journal. Most likely, the level of clutter in the house will gradually creep upwards. In two years, or ten years, or twelve, we may end up right back where we've started.

Or maybe not. I've learned a few things. Like about how merchandizing calls out to you and makes you want to buy stuff. And about how getting new stuff might be pleasing, but it doesn't really make you happy.

I've learned about how we measure a healthy economy in terms of stuff, and how so many objects are made with damaging environmental or social production practices, in the U.S. and abroad...making a healthy economy and a healthy environment incompatible.

The analogy that sticks with me the most from this year is the parallel between eating too much and buying too much. Junk food tastes so good when you eat it, but in the end, it's not very good for you. It makes you sick.

So I'm resolved to be awake. To spend my money on experiences instead of things. To spend good money on good things, instead of buying bargains. To appreciate what I have, so I won't want to reach for the next shiny object. To take care of what I have, so it will last a lifetime.

Now for a glass of champagne (or maybe a cold beer) and a warm bath.

Greeting Cards

Day 364: Greeting Cards

ONE!

The last box, cupboard or shelf I hadn't gone through - greeting cards. 

More Miscellany and a Clementine Box

Day 363: More Miscellany and a Clementine Box

TWO!

Miscellany

Day 362: Miscellany 

THREE!

Stencils

Day 361: Stencils

FOUR!

Ugly Blue Resume Stock from 1985

Day 360: Ugly Blue Resume Stock from 1985

FIVE!

My brother has suggested that starting next week, I could acquire one thing a day and blog about it, every day for a year. By the end of next year, I'll be back to where I was a year ago.

To get a jump on this idea, I've been to my parents house twice in the last two days.  There, I acquired six pink champagne flutes and four pink martini glasses to add to the two pink martini glasses they gave us when we married. Apparently, they offered us this set of glasses soon after we moved back to Ann Arbor. I remember their saying the first two glasses were part of a larger set. I have no recollection of refusing the rest, but they were being stored in a carton with my name on it.  My father is cleaning house.

I came away also with two tiny sherry glasses decorated with cut glass stars. I remember these from my childhood, as doll toys. My father got them in 1962, in Tokyo, when he was in the Navy. He also gave me a bottle of sherry, a bottle of port, several liquors and liqueurs and miscellaneous other beverages to put into the lovely glasses. 

From my mother, a nice sturdy needlepoint frame, imported from England, to replace the flimsy one I bought myself at Joann Fabrics and got rid of earlier this year. Also some leftover beautifully dyed soft wool yarn from my favorite needlepoint kit designer. 

Does this mean I need to extend the stuff project another day, or three?

Not. 

The reverse stuff project won't happen, but I am resolved to be vigilant - or at least thoughtful - about what I do bring into the housen the future. 

I like Sam's idea better.  I eat only whole foods for a year, while he eats only prepackaged foods. 

We'll see who feels better at the end.

Heat Diffuser

Day 359: Heat Diffuser

SIX

Last Bits of Plastic

Day 358: Last Bits of Plastic

SEVEN

Attic shelves completely clean and organized, not a moment too soon. 

Mystery Hardware

Day 357: Mystery Hardware

EIGHT

What is this thing anyway?

Packaging

Day 357: Packaging

NINE

Can't believe I am still finding such things on the shelves. 

Leaky Water Bottle

Day 356: Leaky Water Bottle

Let the countdown begin:

TEN

Insulation

Day 355: Insulation

Some things are so nasty, you don't get rid of them because you don't want to touch them. Such is this rolled insulation, which has been sitting on the floor of our garage alternately soaking up oily, salty water and drying out again since 2002. It has lost so much integrity it barely held together to be carted to the garbage can. 

I wish I had worn rubber gloves. 

Metal Fencing

Dat 354: Metal Fencing

I listened to Helen Macdonald speaking about H is for Hawk today, and T.H. White, and I thought about chickens, and bees, and raptors. I don't intend to have chickens again, not unless I have a friendly neighbor who wants to share them. Honeybees seemed like a more sensible pursuit - they only need to be monitored every week or three - but having a systemic allergy has crossed bees off my list.

The big thaw has cleared the path to more chicken stuff, including this metal fencing that we put along the top of the fence to keep the chickens from flying the coop. For a while, one of the hens was wandering, laying eggs all around the property and annoying the neighbors.

There is a Michigan Hawking Club. Who knew?

I'm not really dreaming of becoming a falconer. It's a lifestyle more than a hobby, perhaps even more than beekeeping. But I understand the appeal. Once trained, hawks don't need fences. Like bees, they are both tame and wild, domestic and free.

Everything seems like a metaphor these days.

Carpet Scrap and Foam

Day 353: Carpet Scrap and Foam

Love spring, hate managing water in an older house built over an underground spring. Spent the day chipping ice and pumping water from the driveway. And, the foyer to the studio is damp. Or perhaps "wet" would be the more accurate term. The studio - an old barn really - sits on a concrete pad, poured after the fact when the building was already over a hundred years old. Remind me, why did we think that putting carpet on the floor was a good idea?

Chipping ice with no coat or hat, sun shining in the sky, still feels like a jailbreak. I don't care what I'm doing, as long as I'm doing it outdoors.

Balls and Charger

Day 352: Balls and Charger


Today is the day you don't get in California, or Florida, or Costa Rica. It's the day the sun shines and the snow melts and the incessant sound of the furnace finally pauses. Today, robins sing and basements flood.

On this day, people take off their scarves and hats and full-length parkas and emerge. We put on our rubber boots and go outdoors.

When we pass each other on the sidewalk, we smile and say, "Nice day." When we slip on the ice, we don't mind so much, because things do get a little slippery before it all dries out and the crocuses come out. When we stop at the corner and wait for the light to change, we turn our pale faces to the sun, close our eyes and draw breath.

Today, we remember our Birkenstocks.

Today is a wang-dang-doodle, shindig jamboree.

It's wahoo, woot woot, weeyaw and hot-diggity dog.

It's yessir, you betcha, yes indeedy-do, yeppers, mm-hmm, true dat, yes ma'am.

It's get-out-of-jail-free day.

Today is hope, faith, charity and love, all rolled up in a ball of sunshine and a fresh breeze.

Today is spring.

Watercolors

Day 351: Watercolors

I'm at the Michigan Theater with Rich, waiting for The Second Rxotic Marigold

Hotel to begin. The organist is playing Let's Go Fly a Kite, very loudly. I'm full to the gills with Knight's  ginger and violet cocktail and an All-American Burger, but contemplating popcorn nevertheless. 

Life could be worse. 

Wickless Candle

Day 350: Wickless Candle

In the days after 9/11, so many writers, philosophers and leaders spoke and published their thoughts about the event. I remember being moved and impressed that anyone could process such a terrible and momentous event, and communicate about it movingly, cogently and quickly. I remember Ken Pfifer, our minister at the UU, gave a sermon that made me cry.

Perhaps I was in a crying state of mind.

I'm not one of those admirable people who can communicate quickly and cogently about a calamitous event. This last week I find I keep forgetting about the stuff project. It'll be seven o'clock at night and all of sudden, I'm saying to myself, I've got to find something to get rid of and write about it. I've got to do this for XXX number more days, and then I'll be free of the project. Today, the number is 15. Fifteen days.

If it wasn't such a hair's breadth to the end, I'd probably quit.

In fact, we are not in the middle of a calamitous event, but merely a difficult event. Even a painful one. Our family is at the starting point of a long and difficult path. There's nothing to say about it yet.

It's difficult to sit in front of the keyboard, self-reflecting, and to think about much else. Waiting, knowing nothing, worrying, planning and trying not to plan. This is the stuff of these next few days. No insight there. Only waiting.

Fierce Wooden Doll

Day 349: Fierce Wooden Doll
The metaphor for this toy is as subtle as Texas. There was once a rod that went through the middle section, holding the toy intact once assembled. At some point, the rod went missing. The toy has been no good ever since. I went to the trouble of scouring the toy shelves trying to find the missing backbone, but no luck. It's just gone.

What is the rod that holds me together? Is it my own inner strength? My husband and family? My yoga and meditation practice? My writing? My work? My mother?

My father?

I have a feeling I'm about to find out.

Address Book

Day 348: Address Book

Another casualty of the Information Age: address books. Where we once used the mighty pen to record information, we now use the cloud. Where we once used our brains to remember the phone numbers of our closest friends and family, we now use speed dial. Our brains we use to remember passwords. 

This little black book is documentary evidence of how transient we are. Less than ten years old, and so many of the names, addresses and telephone numbers out of date

This time, I completely forgot about photographing the object before I got ride of it. Guess I am distracted. 

Photo Printer Paper

Day 347: Photo Printer Paper

I had identified this printer paper as the target for today's blog before I knew my father would be diagnosed with esophageal cancer. This object, with its cheesy photograph of a smiling bride and groom, had me thinking about weddings and funerals and the passage of time before I even got the news.

My thought was that no one would print out their wedding photos on a home Epson printer. That was before I remembered that our three wedding photos were taken by my brother with a cheap point-and-shoot camera. Rich and I were married in the basement of the temporary City Hall in San Francisco, with only my brother and my friend Tina as witnesses. The real City Hall, with its gorgeous gold dome and soaring ceilings, was closed for repairs. We weren't eloping, we just didn't want a lot of fuss.

The basement was typical. Fluorescent lights, acoustic ceiling tiles and green linoleum tile floors. There was a sign on the wall above the registry that said "No Refunds." My brother took a photo of us making silly faces under the sign; I got very tired of looking at that photo in the years after. In my hands, I'm holding a mixed bunch that Tina picked up at a street vendor on her way to the basement. I remember the oriental lily smelled quite overpowering.

My mother once told me that 15 years is a short time. I remember it distinctly. We were sitting in the car on Huron Parkway, stopped at a red light. I must have been in high school. I don't know what I said, but I'm very certain I rolled my eyes and gave the classic hair toss. I remember thinking, "I will NEVER believe that 15 years is a short time." Fifteen years, I thought, represented one-fifth of a lifetime. Fifteen years, I thought, represented my entire life.

I know a lot has happened between and for me and Rich over the past twenty years. I know that during some periods, time seemed to flow like crystallized honey. But from where I sit right now, twenty years seems like nothing. Just a little over twenty years separate me, my brother and sister from our parents. That, and a short cross-town trip.

I'm counting my blessings right now. And praying for another twenty years to spend with my beloved father.

National Geographic Videos

Day 346: National Geographic Videos

To me, these videos are the screen-time equivalent of broccoli. Why would I watch National Geographic videos when dozens - nay, hundreds, of Star Trek videos await?

Why would I eat broccoli when the world is full of beets and cucumbers and acorn squash?

Don't get me wrong. I have a great fondness for National Geographic. I spent three days laying on a sofa in a rented room in the Hebrides 19 years ago, reading National Geographics from cover to cover in between dashes to the bathroom. All-day morning sickness.

Has anyone noticed how much better t.v. is than it was 19 years ago? And how much worse? The line between t.v. and movies is blurring, and in some cases, t.v. series play like a ten, twenty or thirty hour movie. The difference is the venue: at home in your Archie and Edith chairs, or at the theater with popcorn and a giant drink in your hand.

And at the theater, the audience seems to have lost track of the distinction as well. Is it my imagination, or do people talk and text their way through movies on the big screen just as they would at home alone?