Cumulus

Like my parents (especially my father) before me, I have a hoarding problem. I have a really hard time letting go of things. Before I know it, I've got stacks of magazines and piles of paper lying around.

I used to be fairly good at filing things away. But there are only so many file cabinets you can fit, and so many boxes you can heap.

I think it has to do with my sense of displacement, having moved so much, having lost so many mementos. For fuck's sake I still mourn my childhood room, all my books, my diaries, my collection of stamps from countries far, far away, some of which no longer exist.

When I was younger I bought a lot of books, many of which I haven't read. I do love books, not just the joy of reading, but as an art form (it's the Graphic Design major speaking). And also I had many feelings of inadequacy I thought books could ease.

I don't like clutter per se. When RJ states we have too much stuff, I joke that we just don't have a big enough place. Perhaps no place would ever be big enough, given the disease of my mind.

Yesterday, on my birthday, I was taking photos of my lunch as I often do (I was doing this before everybody was doing it). At least I have a spot at the table that's always available - that much I need to maintain my sanity. It is highly important for me to be able to sit down and have a proper sense of a meal.

Then I realized no matter how I finagle, I could not get a clean shot. Because there was always something in the background ruining the picture.

I decided enough was enough. On a whim, I started to clean the orderly mess. (It's orderly because my stacks are very straight, not haphazard. You know. OCD.)

No, not the entire table, silly, Just enough so that there is a better, nicer space between my food and the wall.

While I was at it, I rode the wave and next attacked my desk in the study. That was an even more challenging task. There was literally no surface left for writing. And since shelter in place, I'd been working there, making do day by day. For almost three months, it was a balancing act. Comical at best.

Cleaning is always overwhelming and painful, both emotionally and tactually. When organizing, we also run out of room to neatly clear things out of sight. While sorting menus, even though I knew full well some were easily found online, I couldn't just toss all of them. Again, I've been in love with printed matter for a long time.

I found some cute missives from RJ, some thank you notes from vendors, a whole lot of business cards. Yes, I collect business cards. I could say I am into networking, but a revelation came to me as I was going through them: holding on to these made me feel connected, as if I had real friends.

I do sometimes actually enter these people in my Contacts for safekeeping, but a lot of the time I don't. It gives me pleasure to review the physical cards, admire the designs, revisit the encounters, and revel in possibilities.

Over the weekend, during our weekly conference call, my mother lamented the fact that she had a chest of stuff from her youth: homework, essays, etc. When she got married and moved out of her mother's house, she had not taken the chest with her. Now the chest is lost forever.

Incidentally, just a few days prior, my mother's sister, my Aunt Lynn, had lamented the same thing about her stuff.

As I have also, but of course, lamented about my stuff. I wrote some good essays, damn it.

Everybody loses shit. No one gets to hold on to their shit forever.

In a moment of waning empathy, I said to my mother as much. And regretted it. I could see the pain on her face. A face distorted by the memory of loss.

If you want to get Buddhist about it, it's all just things. When we die, we are not taking any of it with us. We come to the world alone. And we shall leave it alone. No possession. No attachment.

I remember reading Philip Galane's column in the New York Times called Social Q's a while back, when a reader wrote of an incident of a well-meaning but insensitive neighbor after her house had burned down and she lost everything. When urging her to look forward and move on, the neighbor remarked, "It's just stuff!"

To which she replied, "But it's my stuff!"