CREEDE HINSHAW: Getting rid of stuff

Do not save this article! Newspaper clippers already have too many clippings, folders, magazines, sticky notes, books and photographs. A couple of my friends – beset with clutter – often laugh over navigating around the piles stacked throughout their home.

At year’s end/beginning, many people resolve to simplify life. Such resolve, often fed by the overwhelming task of saving/selling/storing/giving away the possessions of the deceased, resurfaces every January. Container stores and office supply stores undoubtedly do a booming business in closet organizers, file folders, plastic containers, storage sheds and various schemes to organize the garage.

This year’s Christmas gift from my brother is the New York Times No. 1 bestselling self-help book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” by Marie Kondo. I note with irony that, added to the two books my sister gave me, I must add three new books to my already overcrowded bookshelves. I try to use the public library for most of my reading, but never seem to empty my shelves. I give dozens of books to the library each year for their annual used book sale, but at that same sale I inevitably bring home dozens of deeply discounted “once-in-a-lifetime” finds.

In a preliminary flip through Kondo’s book, I came across this nugget: never start simplifying your life by trying to dispose of sentimental objects. That sounds like good advice because this stuff is the most perplexing and difficult to get rid of. Much of what clutters my wife’s and my home is sentimental: her mother’s china; her great aunt’s china; my father’s various WWII mementos and uniforms; my father-in-law’s dumpy (I didn’t even know what it was when we brought it home), etc., etc.

Perhaps Kondo will help me figure out what to do with these things. Most people – by default – pass the responsibility to the next generation, adult children who have houses already too full of things and feel bewildered over what to do with a deceased parent’s favorite ball-peen hammer or hand crocheted potholders. I don’t want to pass this job on to my kids nor insist that they must save certain things.

My father had a friend who resolved to clean out all the cans of half-used paint in his storage shed. When his careful inventory revealed that most of the buckets contained leftover paint he might need for touch-up work, he closed his eyes and ruthlessly disposed of every bucket. I wish the person who’d sold me my home had done the same. I had the unwelcome task of disposing of gallons of paint, not an easy task in this ecologically sensitive age.

Jesus was a man whose life was uncluttered. The early church was a church of simplicity. Kondo’s book, I suspect, will give me some good ideas. I’m going to toss a few things from my desk before I even submit this column. But that’s easy. We have an entire closet full of old photographs. I’ll give you a progress report sometime this year.

Email columnist Creede Hinshaw at [email protected].