EMPTY CROW’S NEST
Whenever the girls went off the camp, I took advantage of their absence to get rid of whatever accumulated crap* had been driving me to distraction. I purged under the guise of transitioning the play room into the craft room, then the craft room into the work room, then the work room into the work OUT room.[1] I wouldn’t dispose of the items completely, but rather sequester the ‘disappeared’ items in household purgatory: the 120 year old unfinished basement space, aka the “many legg-ed room”. So called because a “Mommy can you find my X?” journey there will invariably involve having a heebee-geebee encounter with a phalanx of house centipedes. In short, if something has gone to the collectibles death row, you have to REALLY want it to be willing to go retrieve it.[4]
Memorable targets of past purges include the Polly Pocket stuff - which I blamed on a magnet recall, a defect that affected maybe 1% of the assortment of teeny tiny plastic Polly parts.[2] Runner up was the ladies hand-i-crafts that, despite being a creative person, I could not master, and certainly could not assist in the inevitable emergency “scarf” recovery requests.[3] Though in truth, there has never been a shortage of low hanging whatnots. The thing about having three girls is that we were the go-to repository all female specific castoffs. Back before you could sell stuff on Kijiji, parents would foist stuff off on each other as a means of retroactively justifying the exorbitant cost of most toys and child raising gear (which the kids outgrow long before the cost per use gets to a reasonable ratio).[4] Moving boxes of things were gifted routinely: giant lice-infused County Fair stuffies; the herd of foot tall plastic horses; cupboards worth of puzzles and games (all invariably missing a critical piece). We had to stop inviting one friend over because she always arrived with “nearly new” gifts that could only be wrapped in contractor sized garbage bags.
The result is that I am a veteran of the war on clutter. I do not need help from Marie Kundo to cleanse the house of things that bring no joy. My threshold is way lower than elation (M’s threshold is even lower: if it is on a horizontal surface, it goes into the garbage. Full stop.) And so, I spent the first week in our empty nest era cleansing three bedrooms and two bathrooms of fifteen years of accumulated teenager detritus. Once I started it became clear that our house had become a three-story version of the kitchen junk drawer. Our empty nest was in fact an empty CROW’s nest: filled with shiny objects of questionable value. I removed seven bags of garbage, set aside six giant Tupperware of potential Goodwill fodder, and earmarked maybe two boxes of stuff the girls might want to keep. Despite this, every closet, drawer, and cupboard are still (black) magically full.
What remains to be assessed by the girls’ own not-so-discerning scales falls into four loose categories:
1) Circle Economy Clothing: Needless to say, if you shop at Value Village on a weekly basis, for years on end, there will be a significant accumulation of gramma sweaters, repurposed little boy pants, and a seemingly infinite number of hoodies. I am pleased that the girls are environmentally minded shoppers. I also concede (with great bewilderment) that the Talbots Cardigans and Monster truck hoodies do somehow work for them. But, if the artfully (think dull scissors and little forethought) cropped tees, tanks and crews got left behind, surely, we can now let them find their new ‘forever homes’ elsewhere?
2) Special, Precious, Treasures: I have written before about how when the girls were super little, they would collect “treasure” everywhere they went.[5] The girls seem to have no end of stashes of sentimental bullion: “Warm fuzzy” notes from friends; stickers; buttons; yearbooks; notesbooks; sketch books; birthday cards; friendship bracelets...The list goes on. And on. In my estimation, the precious thing will become the “I feel guilty throwing this out” thing, to the “Who is Betty and why did she make me this picture” thing. I figure why not fast track straight to the trash can? I am not heartless so much as efficient at triaging trash from treasure.
3) Awards: I am super proud of the awards the girls have been recognized with. I expect they are too, but there is a difference between feeling good about receiving an award (and thankful for CV content), and displaying them in a trophy cabinet. The result is that we have piles of framed certificates, random medals, glass ‘tombstones’ and pewter Canadian wildlife that its hard to know what to do with. Except for the “Player of the Game” pucks, which you can’t have too many of.
4) Creative Creations: If something the girls made survived my initial assessment, it probably is actually pretty awesome. It is a highly curated collection. I was an unsentimental parent when it came to craft projects, repeatedly getting caught recycling the dried pasta/popsicle stick masterpiece within moments of receipt. I glossed over this by reinforcing the importance of art being about “the process”, and gifts being about the thought. The girls were never convinced, but I felt sure they would thank me for not burdening them with boxes full of bleached out construction paper creations like my Mom did to me (I told her to just throw it all out). If I am wrong…well it’s too late. They can pendulum swing back in the hoarder direction with their own kids.
All of the cleansing may seem heartless - but it’s actually the opposite. I am big believer in the importance of space. I want the girls to return to their rooms to find it like always, but clean and beautiful and welcoming and … most importantly, not full of s—t.
I want the space to be theirs, but the “best-of” version.
Also, decluttering helps me process things. You know, things like the fact that all of our children have left home…
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*Spell check says “this language may be offensive to your reader” about the word “crap”. My sincere apologies. No offense intended…but also this seems like a you-problem, not a me-problem.
[1] This “room” being a 10x10 three season space that no-one actually used but was a handy place to house the communal junk.
[2] I can clearly remember the Polly Pocket gifting Dad letting out a gleeful snicker when he off loaded the box on on us, knowing that M faced years of requests to assist in putting on diabolically tiny shoes and sticky rubber dresses. Something, I found equally amusing. Almost, but not quite, enough to keep it longer.
[3] Whether it was sewing, felting, crochet, knitting, spool knitting, weaving...all the girls' projects pretty much amounted to “scarf”. Much like most pottery efforts amounted to “soap dish”. I say this as the proud pottery-camp creator of an actual soap dish that still resides at our family farm. Which looks exactly like a pile of dog poop.
[4] It says something about rationality of a purchase that you deem it worthy of keeping for 20 years in the event of a future grandchild using it twice a year for a nano second. I still can’t quite bring myself to let go of our $30/animal Schleich figurines.
[5] I was delighted to find stashes of my Moma missives in each of the girls’ drawers. I likewise have every birthday and Mother’s Day card the girls have every made me. They fill the drawer in my side table to the brim. I have yet to need to fall back on these crazy-stupid-love messages. Just knowing they are there is enough. I aspire to spend my life trying to live up to my children’s (grade school aged) opinions of me. If I get a quarter of the way, it will be a life well lived.
[6] I must own my hypocrisy here: Every windowsill in our house is littered with vacation rocks, many of which have sent me into bag jail at customs.