The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were – Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Oscar Wilde said and wrote some very memorable lines but I don’t think he said a word about de-cluttering. People in the late Victorian era enjoyed collecting plants,china, paintings furniture, the rich ones I mean. They loved lavish velvets brocades and massive furniture. And if they wanted to de-clutter, as the term is these days, they’d get a servant to do it. They had servants working from dawn to dusk to keep it all polished and dust-free. Their hygiene was perhaps s little on the shonky side but even in the thirties in Aotearoa we only had a bath once a week. A shower was something that fell down from the skies.
However, it is 2017 and I decided I need to chuck some things that were no longer used or no longer attracted or interested me. It started because I decided to move my work area from the wee dining room to my bedroom. I have been using the dining room as a work area and I needed a change. My lovely neighbour set up the desk and we moved the bed, lugged the chest of drawers to another place, you know how it is. One thing leads to another and then to another. My friend Pam came round the next morning and we changed the bedroom to another configuration and now it has a nice spacious settled feel.
I got stuck into cleaning out my wardrobe which is now unnaturally tidy and looks like a setup in a shop window. You know those interiors that Kirks sometimes had in that side window back in the day?
I have chucked a few clothes but there will be more. What I’d like to do is chuck everything and start afresh but attractive as that idea is, it’s not possible. I have done it once though. Some years ago when I lived in Wellington I went to a seminar organised by Paula Ryan, the fashion designer and she told us all to go home, chuck out everything, everything, in our wardrobes and start again. For some reason, perhaps I was under a spell, I went back to the apartment and did exactly that. Chucked everything in my wardrobe out except what I was wearing. It was one of the most exhilarating and happy things I’ve ever done. Exciting, freeing and never regretted. It was like I swiped an old me and then swiped in a new one. I even impressed myself.
I still have some things to do in this current de-clutter but the truth is that even this comparatively small rearrangement/throw out has brought back that heady feeling that came after I got rid of that mountain of stuff all those years ago. When in doubt, chuck it out, is the motto.
The truth is that when I get rid of clothes, furniture, bedding, whatever’s hanging around doing nothing except take up space, something is released – some part of me that responds to that feeling of freedom. Remember Kristofferson’s line, Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose? He’s right. If I had enough guts I would chuck it all and start again just like I did that first time but for now I’ll throw out some, not all. Yes, Oscar, the process is never simple and never totally pure but there’s a simple and satisfactory pleasure in getting rid of stuff That’s the truth, Try it.
