Our Orange Oasis

the tyranny of belongings

November 15th, 2007

After living so long without the bulk of our belongings–over a year–it was simultaneously overwhelming, depressing and tiring to get everything back from storage. We determined that financially we needed to stop paying for storage, but now I wonder if my peace of mind is actually worth more than being fiscally prudent! We started out with about 45 boxes–4 high, 5 across, and 2 deep, which we’ve winnowed down to a little less than half, which is still too much STUFF!

So far we’ve donated furniture, books, and clothes and knick-knacks to housing works, I’ve gotten rid of bottles and bottles of hair + beauty products on freecycle, and Luke has taken so many books to the used book store that we have $75 credit there now. And yet, there is still more to cope with…ugh.

Of course the flip side of opening all these boxes of unwanted stuff is that we do see things we want to keep. “Oh, here’s my squid-shaped whisk. Let’s get rid of everything except for that…and here’s the lava rock I picked up at Mons Klint on the seashore in Denmark. I can’t get rid of that. We’ll get rid of everything but the squid-shaped whisk and the lava rock from Mons Klint. Oh, and there’s the exquisite silk obi I got on ebay that came all the way from Japan. Let’s get rid of everything, but I’m going to keep the squid whisk, the lava rock from Mons Klint and the exquisite silk obi….” just like that scene in The Jerk with Steve Martin (as Luke pointed out).
It is appalling how time-consuming it is to sort and discard and stash belongings, and doubly appalling that we lived with all this crap for so long! Furthermore, everything mostly seems really junky in the renovated space. I suppose the good thing is, once we’ve sorted it all out, we’ll be quite vigilant about not allowing our possessions to possess us again!

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