Such a delight of a piece to read and what an exciting and expansive adventure lies ahead for you. Topically, one within a constrained shared space with minimal possessions.
What’s my M.O. on P.O. ?… I’d say haphazard and contradictory like much of the mess stashed away within my mind. I will gather, collect and hoard for an extended period, then a life event will sweep down upon me and awaken me to the chaos and confusion of the keeping.
I once did a transatlantic family move to Washington DC * with four small humans in tow and found it nothing short of absurd to open a well-packed box on our return (to a sodden December in Hampshire) and unwrap a pristine craft paper Tudor cottage which child 2 had scissor-snipped 3 years previously and which had just travelled a futile 7,248 mile round trip. Only to be jettisoned immediately; it felt so overwhelmingly pointless to waste my already compromised brain energy trying to find a new shelf home for it in that moment. Besides, there was now a similarly well crafted model of The White House to find a display home for. 🤓
* Yes, reading Clover’s ongoing experience of life in The Capitol Swamp is very evocative.
I’m envious of the road trip. We did one across the US and living with so little to clear and clean and set eyes upon, frankly, that is an experience I have very fond memories of. There is something freeing in the not seeing of the old stuff.
I keep things, often in my bedside table which I do periodically clear out. I find it hard to throw away cards, birthday and other celebration cards that mum or other significant people have sent. It just doesn't feel right to drop them into the recycling bin so they go into an assortment of envelopes to be stowed on bookshelves. Although I did open a brown envelope the other day and in amongst all manner of letters were my dad's bus pass and library card. I remember them being in his wallet when he died. My eldest wanted the wallet, because it was his grandad's, and I couldn't bring myself to throw away the cards, even his Co-Op membership card. I often think about the things I hold on to...but more importantly for now, have a fabulous trip. I can't wait to hear and read all about it. Hx
I’ve kept and tossed. Tossed diaries I didn’t want anyone ever finding, deleted emails. It’s ok that they’re gone because everything will be one day. But I do wish I kept those things. Perhaps they would support this weaving of the quilt I find myself doing, writing my reflections and keeping old high school scrapbooks and mementos.
We are creating, looming the ancestral quilt even if it merely ends up in threads once we’re gone. There is something to this creating that ties humanity to the divine.
Yes, we all have too much ‘stuff’ and life in a modern over-consumption society is in play too. So I think it’s a balance of letting go, and keeping to create. That balance has to be completely individual, right?
As for the teeth, I have a couple in my top bathroom drawer to discard soon that I’ve been lazy to attend to. I bury them in the dirt in our backyard or the field past our backyard (no fence). An offering on a whim about gratitude and returning to the soil tends to bubble up. It feels right,💕 the small actions that will lead to the final act.
Enjoyed this post very much, so relatable the loss of our own younger selves that we try to remember in our continued becoming. Just as we tried to predict our current versions now back then.
Lindsay, your egg will survive in all its vulnerability. 🪺 And, cupboards at the top of stairs seem to keep storing a treasure trove of sorts 😉…
Yes, travelling reinforces the fact that one can get by with very little — a great lesson for youngsters and can be used as a reminder when they say they ‘need’ something. Travelling in my twenties held me in good stead over the years, helping me be conscious about keeping my wardrobe well coordinated and as minimal as possible.
My closest and dearest brother died when he was 25 and I was 23. I learnt much through this traumatic experience. Thankfully he didn’t own much and something innate instructed me to keep only a few meaningful items which I still have to this day but have given my kids permission to pass on if they so desire instead of holding on to them out of duty.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, my parents were hoarders and much of it was in good order but because I knew that my brother is still here within me, there was no need to hold on to many of their belongings — it was easier to let go.
Still, I too have kept the kids and dogs teeth, cuttings of Cannonball the cat’s whiskers and fur (we declined his ashes) but I, almost fanatically every 2 to 3 years, get rid of unused things so the kids aren’t left with the burden of having to sort through a lifetime of baggage — both literally and figuratively.
So sorry to learn about your brother dying so young, Frances. I can't imagine the pain a family must confront and move through when a child or young adult dies. I also think it's really lovely of you to relieve your own children of the sense of duty we can often feel to hold on to things after a death. The fictional clear-outs you do also sound commonsense and intentional.
So sorry to learn of your loss Shaista. Losing someone dear, especially when you trust they will be around to share much, causes a great tumultuous grief. But the beautiful thing is that the intangible; the love, the tenderness and intimacy, if you allow it; welcome it, will see you through. ❤️🩹
Oooo so good Lindsay. Have so many random objects that I find hard to categorise or find a home for but that I don’t want to let go of. Spending time with my parents this week has made me realise I possibly get this from them…! (But I hope not to the same degree, so much stuff!). My in-laws are the complete opposite, they have no stuff at all! I spent some time looking through my grandmother’s photo album whilst I have been here (she died 20 plus years ago), amazing pictures from the 40s/50s and it made me think about how our photographs and our things leave a trace that we existed. It has also made me realise I must make photo albums…! Have the most fantastic trip, sounds mind-blowing! So exciting xx
I recognise everything you say here. My mother was a full-scale hoarder and I’ve already had to tackle the thing I’ve dreaded all my life: clear my childhood home after my parents died. The image I’ve chosen for my own Substack is a jar full of bits and bobs I kept. (I haven’t written about that yet, but I will.)
So there are things of my parents and grandparents that are now mine; childhood things of my own beloved grown-up children that I can’t bear to part with. And a fierce urge to clear my own stuff so they don’t have to!
Have an amazing time away Lindsey. I wonder what living in a small space will do for your perspective on possessions and what treasures you will find away? I have a special things box or two that things go in that I want to keep but don't know what to do with!
Lord, big thoughts Lindsay, big thoughts. Death and children, gets no bigger.
I am currently at my Mums and looking at literally everything with a, "which pile will that go on when she isn't here any more" eye. She's not even unwell or doddery. It's like I'm doing pointless admin for a future everyday trauma.
I want to be buried with my dead dogs' ashes, if I had kids I would include their baby teeth in my burial stash, which will be the size of a large weekend bag, or turn them into something quirky on a string with pearls, why not. I could turn my dogs ashed into a diamond, along with the baby teeth, that could be quite a cool piece of jewellery.
OOFTY, how do always know what I’m brooding on? Grief and objects, transmission and trauma. I do like the term ‘problematic objects’ - that is what the piles are called now! My worst one is my mum’s phone, still going strong and I still read her WhatsApp group messages! Enjoy the trip, sounds amazing!
Oh loved this Lindsay. A topic close to my heart. I wrote an essay recently called ‘finding my grief in the breadmaker’ about holding onto things far too long!
My next challenge is my wedding dress, which after divorcing 14 years ago after a series of tragedies was still hanging in my parents home since my wedding 20 years ago. They are downsizing so I had to address it. They like to not talk about important things and are quite hoardy, though you don’t notice as they live in a large house. My daughter says the dress is cursed so doesn’t want it, and I don’t want to shove it in the charity shop. I found a wonderful lady who converts them into gowns for stillborn babies which is my best bet but emotionally it’s all hard and I’m not quite ready, still a work in progress! 🧡
Kate, I LOVED that piece when I read it. Thanks for reminding me of it. Now, the wedding dress – that is quite the dilemma. I do love the idea of the project that reshapes them and gives a grieving family something beautiful for their wee ones, but understand also the deep attachment that can stop us from making these leaps. Keep us posted... (Sidebar: I sold mine almost straight away, but have kept and wore for a while the cheapy Topshop 'second dress' I wore later in the night). All I have of the main dress are the photos and the memories...
I am so excited about your trip Lindsay and can’t wait to hear about it. I’m jealous too. What an amazing experience for your family. I too hold onto things and I have my children’s milk teeth. I can’t throw them away. I also have only two things of my father’s, two rings tucked away at the back of my wardrobe, and they are massive - he had very big fingers. I wonder sometimes if they are worth something, but every time I take them out and look at them I see and feel him and this feels important. My dad got rid of everything. He moved around so much that he dumped important things like cine films of us as children which I find unforgivable. Maybe that’s partly why I hold on to everything. I have stacks and stack of my kids drawing books from when they were at Steiner school and all they did was making wishy washy watercolour paintings (they are actually very beautiful). I guess I really value these things. I certainly value art of any kind
The films, Lily. Oh, what you'd give to see those, I bet. And I understand that impulse to do the opposite with your own children and keep everything. Let it be, perhaps, their decision eventually about what to hold on to or throw away. This is making me think also about whose memories these items jog... What our children might feel or think when they see the stuff we kept; the stories we chose to tell if their young lives and our part in them?
Yes, we write because we hoard. This is a related activity, memoir and hoarding. And, yes, my mind just skates over the task of tossing away things, because I can just get to it another day. But it’s, I’ve come to realize, about accepting the most difficult part of being human, the passage of time. And Loss associated. And maybe once we understand that as a task, as a goal, that acceptance, it will get easier? I’m a work in progress. But I do know my son doesn’t need to find his baby teeth after I’m gone. I found mine, of course I did. My mother kept everything, not just her artwork and letters from all those painters. She had, and defended, a collection of takeout menus from the previous century. The jar of sugar packets from various restaurants were travel souvenirs. (As we age, we get worse…)
I agree. That’s how I started my substack. I thought I could clean out my office (where I moved so much of my mother’s stuff from her loft) by writing and posting as I went. I’d file, and toss, and write. But I’ve done lots of writing, and very little tossing 😊
This is so interesting to me, as I had thought similarly that in the writing, I'd find less of a need for the objects and ephemera that led to words on the page... But like you, I feel more bound to them than ever.
This resonates Lindsay (and hi! it’s been a while, and wonderful to read your words again). Made me think of something I read about Hurricane Katrina, and how after the initial devastation some people felt liberated by a total loss of personal items and felt much freer and lighter until they began again. Maybe enforced separation can be a blessing in disguise?
Chloe! Hi, pal. I thought about this when you first commented, and apologies for the late reply to you and others – we have arrived in mainland Europe and everyone is slowly calibrating... I wondered if what I'd written could be construed as glib, given what so many in the world face now. People whose whole material lives have been obliterated, even if for now they have been spared. I do wonder what our relationship to things says and what we could or would be if we were relieved/released of them...
Shaista, I'm so sorry for your loss, and thank you for your perspective. Sending love x
You said it! Cupboards stuffed!😱
Such a delight of a piece to read and what an exciting and expansive adventure lies ahead for you. Topically, one within a constrained shared space with minimal possessions.
What’s my M.O. on P.O. ?… I’d say haphazard and contradictory like much of the mess stashed away within my mind. I will gather, collect and hoard for an extended period, then a life event will sweep down upon me and awaken me to the chaos and confusion of the keeping.
I once did a transatlantic family move to Washington DC * with four small humans in tow and found it nothing short of absurd to open a well-packed box on our return (to a sodden December in Hampshire) and unwrap a pristine craft paper Tudor cottage which child 2 had scissor-snipped 3 years previously and which had just travelled a futile 7,248 mile round trip. Only to be jettisoned immediately; it felt so overwhelmingly pointless to waste my already compromised brain energy trying to find a new shelf home for it in that moment. Besides, there was now a similarly well crafted model of The White House to find a display home for. 🤓
* Yes, reading Clover’s ongoing experience of life in The Capitol Swamp is very evocative.
I’m envious of the road trip. We did one across the US and living with so little to clear and clean and set eyes upon, frankly, that is an experience I have very fond memories of. There is something freeing in the not seeing of the old stuff.
Bon voyage Lindsay
I keep things, often in my bedside table which I do periodically clear out. I find it hard to throw away cards, birthday and other celebration cards that mum or other significant people have sent. It just doesn't feel right to drop them into the recycling bin so they go into an assortment of envelopes to be stowed on bookshelves. Although I did open a brown envelope the other day and in amongst all manner of letters were my dad's bus pass and library card. I remember them being in his wallet when he died. My eldest wanted the wallet, because it was his grandad's, and I couldn't bring myself to throw away the cards, even his Co-Op membership card. I often think about the things I hold on to...but more importantly for now, have a fabulous trip. I can't wait to hear and read all about it. Hx
I’ve kept and tossed. Tossed diaries I didn’t want anyone ever finding, deleted emails. It’s ok that they’re gone because everything will be one day. But I do wish I kept those things. Perhaps they would support this weaving of the quilt I find myself doing, writing my reflections and keeping old high school scrapbooks and mementos.
We are creating, looming the ancestral quilt even if it merely ends up in threads once we’re gone. There is something to this creating that ties humanity to the divine.
Yes, we all have too much ‘stuff’ and life in a modern over-consumption society is in play too. So I think it’s a balance of letting go, and keeping to create. That balance has to be completely individual, right?
As for the teeth, I have a couple in my top bathroom drawer to discard soon that I’ve been lazy to attend to. I bury them in the dirt in our backyard or the field past our backyard (no fence). An offering on a whim about gratitude and returning to the soil tends to bubble up. It feels right,💕 the small actions that will lead to the final act.
Enjoyed this post very much, so relatable the loss of our own younger selves that we try to remember in our continued becoming. Just as we tried to predict our current versions now back then.
I don't know what to do with my boy's baby teeth either...
Lindsay, your egg will survive in all its vulnerability. 🪺 And, cupboards at the top of stairs seem to keep storing a treasure trove of sorts 😉…
Yes, travelling reinforces the fact that one can get by with very little — a great lesson for youngsters and can be used as a reminder when they say they ‘need’ something. Travelling in my twenties held me in good stead over the years, helping me be conscious about keeping my wardrobe well coordinated and as minimal as possible.
My closest and dearest brother died when he was 25 and I was 23. I learnt much through this traumatic experience. Thankfully he didn’t own much and something innate instructed me to keep only a few meaningful items which I still have to this day but have given my kids permission to pass on if they so desire instead of holding on to them out of duty.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, my parents were hoarders and much of it was in good order but because I knew that my brother is still here within me, there was no need to hold on to many of their belongings — it was easier to let go.
Still, I too have kept the kids and dogs teeth, cuttings of Cannonball the cat’s whiskers and fur (we declined his ashes) but I, almost fanatically every 2 to 3 years, get rid of unused things so the kids aren’t left with the burden of having to sort through a lifetime of baggage — both literally and figuratively.
So sorry to learn about your brother dying so young, Frances. I can't imagine the pain a family must confront and move through when a child or young adult dies. I also think it's really lovely of you to relieve your own children of the sense of duty we can often feel to hold on to things after a death. The fictional clear-outs you do also sound commonsense and intentional.
Sorry to hear of your dear brother at a young age for you both. I hear gratitude for the experience he gave through that loss.
My dearest brother died recently, and he also did not own much. Transformative lens for the material things of this world.
So sorry to learn of your loss Shaista. Losing someone dear, especially when you trust they will be around to share much, causes a great tumultuous grief. But the beautiful thing is that the intangible; the love, the tenderness and intimacy, if you allow it; welcome it, will see you through. ❤️🩹
Oooo so good Lindsay. Have so many random objects that I find hard to categorise or find a home for but that I don’t want to let go of. Spending time with my parents this week has made me realise I possibly get this from them…! (But I hope not to the same degree, so much stuff!). My in-laws are the complete opposite, they have no stuff at all! I spent some time looking through my grandmother’s photo album whilst I have been here (she died 20 plus years ago), amazing pictures from the 40s/50s and it made me think about how our photographs and our things leave a trace that we existed. It has also made me realise I must make photo albums…! Have the most fantastic trip, sounds mind-blowing! So exciting xx
I recognise everything you say here. My mother was a full-scale hoarder and I’ve already had to tackle the thing I’ve dreaded all my life: clear my childhood home after my parents died. The image I’ve chosen for my own Substack is a jar full of bits and bobs I kept. (I haven’t written about that yet, but I will.)
So there are things of my parents and grandparents that are now mine; childhood things of my own beloved grown-up children that I can’t bear to part with. And a fierce urge to clear my own stuff so they don’t have to!
It’s a conundrum.
Thanks for expressing it so well.
Have an amazing time away Lindsey. I wonder what living in a small space will do for your perspective on possessions and what treasures you will find away? I have a special things box or two that things go in that I want to keep but don't know what to do with!
Lord, big thoughts Lindsay, big thoughts. Death and children, gets no bigger.
I am currently at my Mums and looking at literally everything with a, "which pile will that go on when she isn't here any more" eye. She's not even unwell or doddery. It's like I'm doing pointless admin for a future everyday trauma.
I want to be buried with my dead dogs' ashes, if I had kids I would include their baby teeth in my burial stash, which will be the size of a large weekend bag, or turn them into something quirky on a string with pearls, why not. I could turn my dogs ashed into a diamond, along with the baby teeth, that could be quite a cool piece of jewellery.
A future archeologist will find it interesting.
OOFTY, how do always know what I’m brooding on? Grief and objects, transmission and trauma. I do like the term ‘problematic objects’ - that is what the piles are called now! My worst one is my mum’s phone, still going strong and I still read her WhatsApp group messages! Enjoy the trip, sounds amazing!
Oh loved this Lindsay. A topic close to my heart. I wrote an essay recently called ‘finding my grief in the breadmaker’ about holding onto things far too long!
My next challenge is my wedding dress, which after divorcing 14 years ago after a series of tragedies was still hanging in my parents home since my wedding 20 years ago. They are downsizing so I had to address it. They like to not talk about important things and are quite hoardy, though you don’t notice as they live in a large house. My daughter says the dress is cursed so doesn’t want it, and I don’t want to shove it in the charity shop. I found a wonderful lady who converts them into gowns for stillborn babies which is my best bet but emotionally it’s all hard and I’m not quite ready, still a work in progress! 🧡
Kate, I LOVED that piece when I read it. Thanks for reminding me of it. Now, the wedding dress – that is quite the dilemma. I do love the idea of the project that reshapes them and gives a grieving family something beautiful for their wee ones, but understand also the deep attachment that can stop us from making these leaps. Keep us posted... (Sidebar: I sold mine almost straight away, but have kept and wore for a while the cheapy Topshop 'second dress' I wore later in the night). All I have of the main dress are the photos and the memories...
I am so excited about your trip Lindsay and can’t wait to hear about it. I’m jealous too. What an amazing experience for your family. I too hold onto things and I have my children’s milk teeth. I can’t throw them away. I also have only two things of my father’s, two rings tucked away at the back of my wardrobe, and they are massive - he had very big fingers. I wonder sometimes if they are worth something, but every time I take them out and look at them I see and feel him and this feels important. My dad got rid of everything. He moved around so much that he dumped important things like cine films of us as children which I find unforgivable. Maybe that’s partly why I hold on to everything. I have stacks and stack of my kids drawing books from when they were at Steiner school and all they did was making wishy washy watercolour paintings (they are actually very beautiful). I guess I really value these things. I certainly value art of any kind
The films, Lily. Oh, what you'd give to see those, I bet. And I understand that impulse to do the opposite with your own children and keep everything. Let it be, perhaps, their decision eventually about what to hold on to or throw away. This is making me think also about whose memories these items jog... What our children might feel or think when they see the stuff we kept; the stories we chose to tell if their young lives and our part in them?
Yes, we write because we hoard. This is a related activity, memoir and hoarding. And, yes, my mind just skates over the task of tossing away things, because I can just get to it another day. But it’s, I’ve come to realize, about accepting the most difficult part of being human, the passage of time. And Loss associated. And maybe once we understand that as a task, as a goal, that acceptance, it will get easier? I’m a work in progress. But I do know my son doesn’t need to find his baby teeth after I’m gone. I found mine, of course I did. My mother kept everything, not just her artwork and letters from all those painters. She had, and defended, a collection of takeout menus from the previous century. The jar of sugar packets from various restaurants were travel souvenirs. (As we age, we get worse…)
I agree Eliza, writing memoir and hoarding go hand in hand, and I am always so grateful when I find something useful for my writing.
I agree. That’s how I started my substack. I thought I could clean out my office (where I moved so much of my mother’s stuff from her loft) by writing and posting as I went. I’d file, and toss, and write. But I’ve done lots of writing, and very little tossing 😊
This is so interesting to me, as I had thought similarly that in the writing, I'd find less of a need for the objects and ephemera that led to words on the page... But like you, I feel more bound to them than ever.
This resonates Lindsay (and hi! it’s been a while, and wonderful to read your words again). Made me think of something I read about Hurricane Katrina, and how after the initial devastation some people felt liberated by a total loss of personal items and felt much freer and lighter until they began again. Maybe enforced separation can be a blessing in disguise?
Chloe! Hi, pal. I thought about this when you first commented, and apologies for the late reply to you and others – we have arrived in mainland Europe and everyone is slowly calibrating... I wondered if what I'd written could be construed as glib, given what so many in the world face now. People whose whole material lives have been obliterated, even if for now they have been spared. I do wonder what our relationship to things says and what we could or would be if we were relieved/released of them...
I can imagine that, possessions can be such a burden!