A different sort of Monday Musings this week …
My reading group’s June book is Edwina Preston’s Bad art mother, which was published by Wakefield Press last year and which I’ll be reviewing soon. (If you don’t know it and are interested, you can check out Lisa’s review.) It was shortlisted this year for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction (in the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards) and for the Stella Prize. Wakefield Press’s website describes it as being “set in the Melbourne milieu of Georges and Mirka Mora, Joy Hester, and John and Sunday Reed”. The same milieu, in fact, that inspired Emily Bitto’s The strays (my review) although that’s a very different book. However, I digress … because my little question for you today is not central to the book, just something that caught my attention. It comes from Owen talking to his aunt:
Why did you throw out everything when you sold the house in Coburg, Ornella? Was it because you knew all those things didn’t matter in the end, that without memories attached they were just junk shop rubbish? You put Nonna’s things out on the grass for the neighbours to pick through. You didn’t even keep a teapot, or a pair of earrings. You filled your place with glossy new things … But what are you now without all those things?
There’s a bit more, but the question Owen asks is one I’ve been confronting in my current big downsizing project – a project that is almost done, thank goodness. Still, it has been difficult, a wrench, to part with things that are part of the story of my life, things I haven’t used in decades but that, every time I see them, remind me of some person or event. They gave me joy, so Marie Kondo’s criterion just didn’t work!
However, to use a cliche, you can’t take them with you, and we don’t want to leave more of a headache to our kids than we have to, so decisions had to be made. And, they have been. I do expect some gnashing of teeth in the future, as well as some “I kept that!”, but overall I think we’ve done ok. My choices were not based on value, but on meaning, so out went some fine art porcelain and in stayed Mum’s funny little no-brand donkey that she kept with her through her many moves, for as long as I can remember. I never did ask her why – why didn’t I? – but I couldn’t let it go. And, of course, I kept her copy of Pride and prejudice.
I could go on, sharing all my little decisions, but will leave it there, and return to the opening question: what do our things mean to us, and does letting them go change who we are?
What do you think?
Whispering Gums 
I’ve just been through this with someone going into aged care, that’s the ultimate downsizing…
I could see the relief on his face when I rescued some bits and pieces and said I’d look after them for the next generation that doesn’t want them now, e.g. his mother’s watch that a future grandchild might like to have. They’ll probably end up in a junk pile anyway, but it doesn’t have to be faced right now, and maybe time will be kind to him and he’ll forget all about them.
But I think it’s different for everybody. And when it comes to it, the next generation has usually furnished their own place to their own taste, and don’t have room for or want the things we think they might like to have.
It sure is Lisa. We did that with my MIL and my Dad. That was a nice thing to do for him. As you say they may end up going out but it’s his feelings now that are important.
True about the next generation. It was for me but I still couldn’t see all the things go when our parents downsized. Much went when in our current downsizing but we are furnishing our apt mostly with existing furniture. We are not going minimalist new apartment style!
I tend to agree with Lisa here. I’ve heard stories about the next generation’s handling of this kind of issues—and maybe it is a consolation to know—it won’t be their ‘headaches’. It would be swift for them as they can decide much quicker than we, for the emotional ties would likely not be as strong as ours with generations past. One of such stories goes like it took the children a week to throw out everything which took the parents years to decide. Well, maybe not quite a consolation, but more a reality. 😐
Yes, I understand this Arti. We did my almost-hoarder aunt’s house after she died a few years ago. Because she’d done no decluttering it was a big job even with the “lesser” emotional element. As I said there will be stuff for the family to deal with – how can there not be, really – but we are committed to reducing the load as much as we can. (We could have done more! But we are expecting another downsize in 10 or so years. This intermediate one has been good practice and hopefully broken the back!)
I’ve moved twelve times since my husband died; and on each occasion I’ve been obliged to reduce my ever-diminishing number of possessions. Every time I’ve had to let go of things that Chic made, or things that he chose. At first this hideous necessity caused me great pain; but as move succeeded move I gradually became inured to shaving off pieces of our life. The memories will never leave me; the fact that my life once contained the best bloke I ever knew can’t be off-loaded; so the mere objects are reduced to .. mere objects ! 🙂
Thanks for sharing this M-R. I am so scared of losing memories BUT you are right. Those really important people in our lives won’t be lost when the things relating to them go. In fact, that was a criterion for me for passing on some things: this person and my relationship with them is held in this object, but this person doesn’t need any objects. (The silly little donkey though just makes me smile and I need that sometimes!)
I’m sillier: I have a spoon in my Chinese tea-tin that he curled the handle over so it would fit into the tin, and I’ll have it till I die. 🙂
I would too M-R. I’m not sure that that’s sillier than my donkey, which is also useful. It includes a little cart that Mum used for the matchbox for her gas stove. I think I’ll use it for toothpicks.
Oh, Sue – this is so timely for me! Just yesterday I had two of my granddaughters over (Stella, 24, and Ruby, 19) to go through the dressing table drawers that held my bits and bobs of jewellery and other treasures that I hadn’t worn or even looked at for years. We had a wonderful time, and I was able to tell them the stories attached to many of the pieces, including some things I’d inherited from my own grandmother. They chose lots of things for themselves and for their mum (my daughter Bridget). I remember my mother’s saying, ‘It’s better to give with warm hands than cold ones.’ In other words, it’s better to give while you’re alive than after you’re dead. It was a very special day for me, and I think for them, too.
That’s a lovely saying…
My music teacher did the same thing with some of her stuff when she was in her early 80s, and I became the recipient of some gorgeous antique Christmas decorations… and a set of nature books that I really didn’t want but of course, couldn’t/wouldn’t say no to. But as I found when I packed up her belongings after her death, there were things she could not part with, or could not think who to give them to. I think it’s in the nature of things because we invest such things with memories, and it is often not until these things are gone that we realise that we remember the important memories anyway.
It is a lovely saying isn’t it Lisa. And yes, I think you are right about the “important” memories remaining – though I still want to keep ALL the memories, but I know I can’t!
I’m trying to focus now on experiences not things – and sometimes things get in the way of enjoying life’s experiences because you are spending too much time caring for them, working about them.
Oh that’s lovely Teresa .. I love your Mum’s saying. Mr Gums’ had an elderly distant relation in England whom we visited in the 1980s. He had seen her several times when he was living in England in the mid 70s. During that visit in the 1980s she gave us two small items : a Royal Doulton dog figurine and a crystal sherry glass and said she was passing on items now to relations while she could have the pleasure of doing so. We still have those two items.
Oof, this post hit some buttons for me. For various reasons I have become the ‘keeper of family stories’, everything to do with family history etc. What that has meant is that it’s in my house that the ‘stuff’ now resides since my parents are both gone. It’s just ‘stuff’ to look at for others, but like your mum’s donkey, each item is pregnant with memories and meaning for me.
I was glad to have it when Mum’s dementia took hold in her later years. When visiting her I was able to take an item or two, kind of like a grown up ‘show and tell’, for her to see and handle. The tiny handbag and several hat pins from the 1950’s she’d kept, her 21st birthday key, a wooden one autographed by friends and family. Photos, of course. Two early high school social studies exercise books. Lots of other items, each one sparking recognition and pleasure in a mind that was daily growing cloudier, allowing us to tell and re-tell stories from her past together.
All this is to say that objects like that are hard to let go.
Like you I have been trying to downsize a bit since the recent experience of cleaning out my mother in law’s house readying it for sale. She had lived there for over sixty years and NEVER threw a thing away. Needless to say it was a major headache, to use your word. My husband and I are similarly determined not to leave such a task for our kids.
But then I’m faced with my role as keeper of the family stories, some of which are embedded in those objects.
I’ve been able to part with many things but oh dear, the choices are difficult. I am learning that memories don’t always need to objects to go with them, but it is a hard process.
Anyway thank you for the thoughtful post.
Thanks so much for this reply Denise. You are clearly a person after my own heart. (I was horrified to discover too late that I had accidentally put Mum’s wooden 21st birthday key – also signed by friends and family – in the out pile. How did I do that? Anyhow, she has gone so I don’t have to worry about using it the way you used your Mum’s. I love that story.)
I have photographed some objects, etc, that contain memories. I think they will initiate the memory just as well as the object would, expect they are buried in digital albums rather that on a shelf or in a drawer under my nose. But still, the photos will in many cases do the job.
I am so pleased that Mr Gums and I are not the only ones not wanting to leave a huge job to our kids. Perhaps it’s only those of us who have done it ourselves (we did it for my aunt who could not throw things out) who realise what an overwhelming task it is. I do think it’s our responsibility to deal with our own stuff. The question is, what is ours and what is family’s, and if the later who in the family wants it!
Good luck with your downsizing. Every bit helps.
I don’t give stuff up, not easily anyway. I still have a house because straight after a marriage breakdown I couldn’t bring myself to give it up (and I cried like a baby when Milly persuaded me to sell our first house).
Mum let her sons and then her grandchildren choose what they wanted before she moved into a retirement village – and lots of it is still in boxes under my spare bed. Dad had made a start on describing the provenance of some of the older stuff, which I had better continue if it’s not to be meaningless for my youngest daughter, who’s a ‘collector’ off the old block.
I can relate to all of this Bill … I don’t give stuff up easily also. This has been a long long process, and some things have been handled multiple times before a decision has been made (which is counter to all those time management rules I learnt at work!)
And yes, describing the provenance of things is so important. Our family members told us some things, and I have a couple of pieces of jewellery that Mum has written their origin (from her two grandmothers) but these is also so much I didn’t ask, they didn’t write, or I didn’t remember. That makes me sad, but it’s life. I’m glad you have a collector off the old block in your family. I thought I did, but it seems I don’t! Things may change before I depart this world but probably not, and there’s health in that approach too.
This is a question I’ve been asking myself for a very long time. I’ve been trying to declutter for quite some years, with varying degrees of success.
I wonder if you’ve read Emily Maguire’s novel Love Objects, that is in large part about decluttering…?
Thanks Maggie. I know all about varying degrees of success!
No, I haven’t read it, but I remember when it came out thinking I’d like to read it. I must add it to my list because I had forgotten it.
I have a hard cover copy of Tim Winton’s Breath which he signed for me years ago, when he was giving a talk at Cremorne Hayden Orpheum to a couple of hundred people. He messed up the signature and was so upset he tried to grab the book back from me, saying he’d ruined it. He couldn’t stop apologizing. I tried to grab the book back and we had a bit of a two-and-fro before he finally relinquished it.
The sight of the messed-up signature inside the cover still brings back that funny memory for me and makes me smile! I’ve decluttered lots of books, but I still refuse to part with that one.
Oh I can understand that Sue … any treasure that makes you smile it worth its weight in gold. (How did he mess up his signature? I went through a phase where I couldn’t do my signature – and it was in the days when you still had to sign for your credit card. On at least one occasion my signature was rejected which of course just made me even more tense when I tried to sign again. This lasted for a few months and then suddenly I was right again. I feel for authors who have to sign for thousands of books.)
Hi Sue, his pen didn’t work properly! Yes, I keep it because the memory of the two of us fighting over the book always makes me smile!
Ah …
And, yes, I understand … not may can say they had a tug of war with Tim Winton!
Hi Sue, I cannot give up anything! I was chatting with a group of friends today, and we all agreed that we couldn’t give up our books. I have tried to declutter but without much success. I keep retrieving items that have been put away for the op shop. I too have the donkey! I did enjoy Bad Art Mother.
Haha Meg … I completely understand this, and in the best of all possible worlds it would be me too, but I just knew we had to downsize. I put things out for the Op Shop, and leave them out for a day to two to give me the opportunity to take them back. Sometimes I do, but I’ve got better at letting them go.
You have the same donkey?! Was it your mother’s too? Do you know anything about it?
Hi Sue, it wasn’t my mother’s donkey, but it was left on the kitchen window sill at one of the houses we lived in. I bought another one from an op shop. I have succeeded at times in taking a few things to the op shop.
You have two? I love it!
We went to an antique/vintage store earlier this year to see whether they would be interested in buying any of our stuff. They weren’t, but I did buy something from them!!! So, you see, I talk big but … haha.
I moved every year or two when I was in my twenties, so I had to declutter regularly every time – but now that I am settled in a home I intend to live in for the foreseeable future, it’s easy to see how I could end up acquiring lots of things that I subsequently have to deal with. Also now being in a position where I can actually buy furniture I like, instead of whatever can be got free or very cheap, I can see that I might easily get more attached in the future.
The only thing I’m truly sentimental about are my books, and even then not all of them. I recently made my will and asked the solicitor if it was possible to leave a list specifying who should get each of my favourite books! Very few of them have any financial value, but they are very beloved, so it seemed to me a way to leave something behind for my loved ones that they would know carried a lot of love and affection with it. (He seemed to think this was a bit eccentric and could probably be sorted out without it going into a legal document, which I suppose is fair enough).
I love all this Loulou. It all makes sense to me but I will say beware of filling up all the spaces because you have them. That’s what I did – just kept fitting more things in. It wasn’t really wise, though I did get pleasure from keeping all these things that meant something to me.
I love your idea re passing on books. I believe you can, here in Australia, add a list to (with?) your will that is not so legally binding but is useful for documenting these sorts of wishes. I’m thinking of doing such a list myself.
Material possessions mean very little to me. I think it comes from my mother, who has a similar mindset, but also I learnt pretty quickly, aged 21, on a scientific youth expedition in FNQ for 6 weeks that the only thing that really mattered was keeping a spare set of socks dry!!! I didn’t need anything else! Also, as a backpacker and frequent traveller and mover of households throughout my 20s, I discovered that I can happily survive with just 12kg of luggage. It also helps that I was separated from the great bulk of my belongings for 2+ years (thanks covid) and realised I could live without it all. So when Tim went back to pack 20 years of our life up, the only thing I specifically asked for was my road bike, my Brompton bike and a box of signed books (of course, he also packed about 800 other books for me… just in case 😆) Needless to say I have not touched the bikes but I loved opening the boxes of books to discover treasures I’d forgotten about!
I wish I could be more like that kimbofo. I admire people who have that attitude as I think, really, it is a healthy attitude BUT I love my things (because of the connections mostly, rather than for the thing itself.)
I;m glad Tim packed up all those books for you!
Particular things have meaning for me but I totally accept that when the time comes, my kids will get rid of the bulk of it (or I’ll do that task for them!). My parents-in-law never throw anything out and observing this has made me swing the other way – I have bouts of being ruthless and getting rid of stuff. My non-negotiables are the photo albums.
Thanks Kate. Yes, I accept that too, but we do think that, even though they might find it easier to discard our things than we do because of our attachments to them, the task is still a chore and we want to save them as much of that as possible. We can save them it all, but we can save them as much as possible. If you are regularly ruthless, you are doing it as you go. Well done.
Photo albums – many of ours have gone actually – but ONLY because we have digitised the photos. Those we haven’t digitised yet we will, and then toss them. They just take up too much space, and I find that I look at my digitised collection quite a lot – just on the weekend my daughter asked for some photos of our last dog and I found a few and emailed them to her in minutes – but our physical albums I almost never look at.
A very interesting blog post and discussion. I have tended to give away a hell of a lot.
Books? Read them and move them on, other than the odd few that I felt deserved a reread later in life. (Later in life is about now in some cases.)
My parent’s goods are now dispersed, other than some objects that my sister and I were particularly fond of. The photo albums we kept, but then I do wonder what will become of them, my sister has no children and my one and only son does not seem interested.
I have never been able to read books and move them on fourtriplezed. My goal now is to read more e-Books so I don’t have to confront that!
I still have quite a few family objects as you can guess, but almost none of the photo albums!
Did the kids have an opportunity to choose things before you moved instead of waiting until you’re gone? That might help some of it along. I sort if do a backward Marie Kondo. An item must spark joy for me to buy it, AND I have to be able to envision where it will go and what its life will look like there.
Oh they certainly did Melanie! I tried to fob off as much as I could to them, but with minimal success! However, because both have bought houses in the last year or so, they actually took more than they would have before that. I know. because I tried before that!
I think you have a healthy policy re buying things.
Luckily or unluckily for me, I discovered my mom had gotten rid of anything that I might have wanted long ago. The set of 3 Siamese cats that hung on the wall, her old hat boxes with hats she wore in the 40s and 50s, the stacks of letters from family “back home”….I could go on and on. I guess she didn’t want to move all that stuff from Arizona to Arkansas back in the 90s so she just tossed it.
So, it was easy for me to have people come in and clear out her house. And then it was easy for me to have people come in and clear out my apartment after my sister died. I kept only the things that mattered to both of us.
I heard someone say something that has really stuck with me. “You are not the keeper of someone else’s memories.” I had to say that to myself quite often when I was getting rid of my parents stuff. Like, all my dad’s stuff from when he was in the Masonic Lodge. That Lodge meant the world to him, but it meant nothing to me. So I had to keep saying “I am not the keeper of my dad’s memories” when I was boxing all that stuff up. And of course there was stuff of my mother’s and my sisters that I had to say that over and over about to. It really helped!! Those things were THEIR memories. Not mine. I don’t have to keep them FOR them.
As for that little donkey, ohmygosh, I would’ve kept that as well. I love little cutey-pie things like that and although it was your mother’s, it is something that is YOUR memory of HER. That’s a perfect reason to keep something.
That is a good saying, jinjer, “you are not the keeper of someone else’s memories”. Most of the things I’ve kept are now for my memories, but there are a few things that I kept (was looking at a little bundle the afternoon) that really were my parents’ memories. I’m going to think upon’t now with that thought in mind. Thankyou.
And yes, you are right about the cute little donkey – it is my memory of her. I don’t know exactly why she kept it, but the fact that she did and that it was always in her kitchen is now my memory. This all takes a bit of teasing out, doesn’t it.
I’ve been thinking about this post ever since I read it last week Sue. As you know, we are down-sizing too, although not to the degree you are. Our move is still only ‘one day soon’, nothing definite but it is going to happen.
After my FIL died, Mr Books found it hard to part with many family treasures that were not only meaningful for his parents, but for him as childhood memories. It’s the paperwork though that he is striggling with the lost. Old letters that no-one can read now thanks to the idiosyncratic cursive used by grandparents (I’m usually pretty good with elderly handwriting, but most of them defeat me too). Some we know we can send to a cousin who loves the family history stuff and some we will keep for his niece, who we suspect will love getting a small box of treasures from us when we shuffle off many years from now and she is old enough to appreciate the pieces that come from her namesake great grandmother in particular). But both boys are adamant they will get rid of the lot when we go!
Hopefully that time is far enough away, that they will feel differently about some of it. Our future DIL seems to be keen on family history and stories, so hopefully she will be our saving grace so to speak. It amuses us watching them slowly accumulate their own stuff now they are setting up their own homes (novelty candles purchased on a holiday, porcelain dogs that look just like their real dogs, quirky coasters…) we love telling them ‘this is how it starts!’
We are certainly conscious though, of not leaving too much stuff for the boys to clean up at the end knowing how difficult it was with my FIL’s lifetime collection of not only his stuff, but both sets of grandparents. However we also know that going through all the stuff was cathartic and helped us with our grieving. It kept him close by for a bit longer.
We have our version of the donkey cart – 3 brass monkeys that Mr Books played with as a child when visiting his grandparents and 2 small red vases that his grandmother regularly used in her still-life paintings (naturally we have a couple of her paintings too).
Good luck Sue, it’s lovely to have some memory keepers around us, but the memories are also inside us. They always will be and it’s amazing what triggers them (for me seeing certain flowers when on my morning walk will be enough to make me think of my grandmother and her green thumb).
I’m glad you took time to respond Brona because this is great, and mirrors my own feelings and experience so much. Our timing has been good because last year both kids bought homes (before they had both bought small properties) and so they said yes to many items they’d said no to before but that I hadn’t yet moved on! They didn’t accept it all but I was pleased to see some desire to keep loved things. My son took his rock collection straight to his classroom.
Paperwork is a big thing for me too. We do plan to scan a lot of it and, if it’s not precious as an object, ditch it. This will be our ongoing Monday morning decluttering project.
YOU are right that not all memories need things. I love that memory of your grandmother.
Now, back to the house…photos for the sale will be Friday so one big cleaning etc push and we should be there. Can’t wait.
Good luck with the last big clean!
We’ve been scanning old documents too – it’s a slow process isn’t it?
Thanks Brona – not fun in this cold weather as it’s outside windows today.
And it sure is!
That’s one way to make it rain 😅
Don’t jinx us! Ha ha!