So here we are, packing up the house we’ve lived in for nearly 25 years. There’s a lot to it. But I suspect you already knew that.
First are the things that we each brought with us when we moved in. There was the blender with a failing gasket, 30 years old. Gaskets for that model aren’t made anymore. Besides, we’ve gotten a food processor that lets me get all the pumpkin pie filling out of it, rather than losing a quarter cup, or so, to that sharp well underneath the blades.There are the five can openers, and, somewhat strangely since I’ve never used them for this purpose, three sets of lobster picks. I’ve used those for nuts, and to dig out garlic stuck in the press, but not for lobsters. This is the easy stuff, though. Which vegetable peeler, bottle opener, set of dishes do we like best? There are corks, spare spoons, tuna tins with both top and bottom removed – all waiting to be reused.
There are other, more personal things we’ve brought. Things saved in youthful exuberance, or because someone said, “You’ll regret tossing that away,” are still in our personal caches. Programs from school plays? Gone. Tassel from high school graduation? Gone. Shoe laces? Gone. Towers with unused read-writable CDs? Gone. We each had a Pentax K1000 camera. Those have moved on, one to a nephew and one stolen out of a dorm room last spring. But we still found at least a dozen rolls of 20 to 30 year old film. There are the blank tapes that went with the micro tape recorder. There are the balls of acrylic / nylon yarn from the days when nothing else was available and I hadn’t learned the difference quality makes. There are half used pads of paper, purchased when there was none to hand, but abandoned to linger in some nook, now uncovered. There is my driver’s license that expired back in 1991, the year after I got married back when I was “a babe, Mom. Look at those retro glasses. Who knew?!” My gosh, I was cute and perky. I don’t remember that at all, but there I am. Hmmmm. Maybe I’ll keep that.
There is the freezer, leaving tomorrow, that we took in trade for the sleeper sofa I had brought with me. Andrew’s naugahyde sofa went ten years before that. There has been documentation – my green card from Morocco, his PSAT scores – that we don’t need anymore, and frankly have little relevance to our current lives, but are still lingering.
I’ve found good homes for the yarn I will never use, and the science fiction magazines I’ve been carrying around since college. The magazines lived at my folks’ house for a number of years, but my mom brought down the last of the stuff that had been mine and left it with us. I should have gotten rid of a lot of that at once, but didn’t. There are craft magazines I feel I should give up and ones I won’t. There are magazines like Smithsonian and The Atlantic, that in all honesty I’ve enjoyed more online than for the paper copies I feel encumbered with. The same is true with the New York Book Review. And yet I still have them and need to deal with getting rid of them now. I’ll continue to browse online, but no need to actually possess physical copies.
Maybe it was my mom’s voice in my head, warning of regret. More likely it was that sense of depression era frugality, the inheritance of my upbringing, grafted on to the rampant consumerism in which I came of age. It sounds snotty. Heck, it is snotty. That’s part of the problem. When I was in high school I used to make 3D paper models and paint them. These were geometrics. They were brightly colored, in many ways precursors for the zentangles people make now, but, as I say, 3D and decked out with little flowers, swirls, paisleys, the swooping lines of paint contrasting with the sharp lines of solid geometry. In later years I learned how to make these out of origami modules. As I fed the craft, I also amassed a huge amount of paper, glue that eventually dried in bottles, rulers, card stock, scissors, exacto knives. I look at this stuff and think of the waste, the unconscionable use of both money and resources. I feel myself slipping into a fugue state of immobility. Good Will can be my answer for only just so much. I feel shame.
While I can see how this could happen with the spinning and knitting fiber I have acquired, I think this is truly a life-craft. I know that people joke about going on “yarn diets” and use acronyms like SABLE (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy). And there is truth to it. One of the differences for me is that I am part of a community, both face to face and online. I will continue my practice of the craft because it keeps me involved with the people. And possibly because I’ve passed that magic 10K hour mark that makes me skilled, able to pass the craft on, while still learning new things. This past year when money has been tight I have found pleasure in shopping my own stash, discovering types and colors of yarn I had forgotten about. The few purchases I’ve made have been specifically to augment what I already have. I found myself relieved that my coffers were full and that I would not need to be champing at the bit, waiting to buy something I wanted to knit with.
Does this justify the consumption of fiber arts materials, as well as books, paper, magazines, clothes, food? No. It does not. The best I can do, beyond finding good homes for the stuff I am about to orphan, is to commit to being more aware of what I am bringing home in the future. This is different than hoarding against the day of need; I do that with twist ties, grocery bags, yogurt containers and the like. It has already stopped me from wandering, gape-mouthed, down the pen and pencil aisle at Walmart. It has kept me from entering Staples. Will it keep us from buying a pancake griddle? Or accepting a subscription to a magazine just because we can get a “good deal” on it? I think it might. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” is a great slogan. The real trick is not to let it come home with you in the first place.
