Every shift of seasons brings a good enough reason to clear out your cupboards of things you don’t need. And in the process, you’ll find the things you do. By Cath Jenkin
Clearing your house of clutter can be a liberating experience. Because Spring-cleaning is not just for spring. It helps to do a clear out whenever the idea grips you, or when the seasons do their dance of change. But there are some things that are never to be thrown or given away, and those things become our life treasures.
I grew up in a family of writers and collectors of ‘important pieces of paper’. There was a table in the corner of our lounge always covered with ‘stuff’. My dad’s desk was worse. Our family filing system? Well, there was that time someone accidentally dropped a lit cigarette into it and the cabinet spurted flames and smoke. We weren’t the most organised of families.
As a child, I would ‘clean my room’ by making a neat little path from the door to my bed, leaving piles of toys and books to the side. To me, this was functional and ‘clean’, although my mom didn’t agree.
As I entered my 20s, I craved organisation, clean counters and clear spaces. I was a minimalist princess, holding on to appliances until they were most-definitely dead, and regularly clearing my flat of extraneous stuff. But I had a secret. A box of mementos, including the ticket stubs from every time I’ve visited the cinema.
There’s a broken ornament in there – a dragon – that was given to me by a friend. I can never let it go. There are books and diaries, letters and notes. I’m not a fan of diamonds or gold, so these are my life treasures.
Now that I’m in my 30s, that box of mementos is no longer a box. It’s an office, filled with files and cases of “important stuff”, that I’ve deemed treasures. One day, my child may find meaning in them. Yes, I’m turning into my parents.
Granted, a lot of what I hope to one day pass on to my daughter lives in a digital world, but the physical treasures of my life, the diaries, the photographs and those pieces of important paper, are lovingly stored away for her. But they’re stored out of sight, so nobody who visits us knows my secret (until now, of course).
But when it comes to the everyday stuff of life that festoons our bedroom cupboards and piles up around us, we are ruthless. Once a season, big bags of clothes and things make their way to the garbage truck or into the hands of people who may find them useful. There’s a sense of lightness to this, of handing over what’s no longer needed and of reclaiming spaces.
My daughter knows though, that if there’s something she clings to – an item of importance – I won’t pile it on the “To Go” pile. She knows I have my secret treasures, and it’s time she began making her own.
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