So most important to begin. There are so far too many people in this country, in this world, who do not have what they need, not even considering what they might want. Full stop fact.
So check my privilege, at least a little. I am reducing because I have too much. It’s purposeful, but still I have choices. I’ve given a lot away already to people I know will use and appreciate those things. And I can choose to keep what is necessary and meaningful to me. That is privilege.
So my stuff, just lucky me for having choice.
Right at the beginning of COVID in 2020 I made a sudden (expensive, but a choice) move to Austin. Several long Texas/Illinois/Texas/Illinois trips, house pack-up and sale, the sudden get-things-in-storage, a lot of crammed-full luggage, mostly that just with important things, photos, journals, my first grade spelling book, a little Manjushri figure even. Some shipping. Bought in Texas just average normal clothing hangers and laundry hampers and storage and bookcases, because I was for a while living in a cluttered house with no place even to put things except half, or less, of a dark closet and some ugly metal bookcases hauled off the street (not by me, by someone I was living with). Privileged me (who has worked and earned, got the papers, so not just nepo), I could not stand those crappy metal bookcases. Just hard no. Don’t know what eventually happened to them, probably stored in the ratty garage outside where I lived that one summer.
And does this read like a whine. Maybe. But just what happened. A lot of compromising, and I am so not, not, not a spoiled brat. But it was a lot of compromising.
And anyway, who, even privileged person me, does not sometimes just need a good whine.
That summer ended and I moved into my own space, very minimalist, spare, clean, great neighbors and their precious dogs, what works for me. Just a few important books, a bed, importantly not on the floor, clean bedding, importantly no roaches crawling on me and no raccoons scratching the walls at night, desk, desk chair (which beyond belief I assembled on my own…not my skill set but did it anyway), working appliances. (Cool Task Rabbit guy helped me with the bed assembly…I’m a lightweight when it’s heavy furniture.) I know, privilege. Beds off the floor. And clean bedding. And no roaches or raccoons. And Task Rabbit nice help.
In my own space I really, really, really enjoyed living with less. Now still do.
And so with all this transition of recent years, I am becoming a very successful parer-downer.
Have cleared a full house, two storage units, one of those still to go. So much just donated. That feels so effing liberating.
Truly like (how not to like) Marie Kondo. There is joy in some material things and if we’re lucky to have them, appreciate that. I’ve got down to many far fewer things that I really do like. More to go. Liberating.
My former husband would lecture me a bit on aesthetics. He believed that function comes first, maybe all that matters. I would disagree, and I did, and still do. I just have my sense for what is lovely and and yet works. Function and form are not zero-sum. Both can be.
(Then there is some junk like rattley metal bookcases dragged off the street, no function, no form. Just junk.)
So thanks, Marie Kondo, for advice on what one has that does bring joy.
Here now, some stainless kitchen widgets. So small, but very pretty (and functional, garlic press, can opener, measuring cups and spoons, really very pretty salt and pepper shakers, looking at you). Two indigo plates and two indigo bowls, two tumblers, two stemless, one clear salad bowl, one clear baking dish, one wooden stirring spoon, from yup, IKEA, when I had to get into a new apartment very quickly. Even indigo cat dishes. Simple things, and not a lot, but when I moved into my own Austin apartment (loved it there), liberating. And darn if those things don’t remind me how good that felt. More light.
Two rose gold and one jade green plant pots from Austin’s just so so so best garden store The Great Outdoors. Prairie Gardens here another so so so best garden store. New jade plants and new cypress tree from those folks that I will do my darnest to keep alive in months ahead.
Here now where I’m living, the books I’ve kept, just those important to me and my work and writing. Some gifted to people who I think would appreciate and use them. Ones I no longer need, given to the wander-for-hours-wonderful-multi-storied Jane Addams bookstore.
Some art going back decades, some made for me and for my son, from Austin creatives, some good friends.
Song of the Lark, a painting which some critics have called too sentimental, but…bought at Art Institute Chicago when I had no money…helped get me through a tough winter of first graduate school.
And numbered, from an Illinois artist, Billy Morrow Jackson, that I bought so many years ago while working an arts benefit, then had framed at a store on Santa Monica Boulevard when I first moved to Los Angeles. To remind me of muddy country roads in early spring Illinois. Really, I love that print.
Irreplaceable.
Here now, indigo (yes, I like that shade of blue) chaise, Turkish rug (yes, indigo), shiny beautiful dark maple dining, here now from my Father’s inheritance. Never giving up those.
Here now piano and flute, given me as gifts from my Grandmother and Parents. Grandmother jewelry. My jewelry (which I only rarely even use these days, might still). Never giving up except to my neices, and they already know the time will come when they can pick from anything they want.
My Father hand-made Grandfather clocks for each of his kids when they got married. (He made a small wall clock for me when I still was single, so cute, then the tall one for my wedding.) (Both of mine given now, still in family.)
And my Oliver The Cat. My brothers and sisters made sure I would not lose him. One of my over-the-years-living-critters, not stuff.
.And then yesterday came to the door my new Snoopy journal. Marie Kondo would ask whether that Snoopy journal brings me joy. And yes, it does.
Dayna Finet 