Clearing Clutter Leaves Emptiness
This is not a simple city.
The more Jimmy Carter shed, from yacht to limo, the less he was respected. Bills about downsizing themselves need downsizing. The capital is more mover than Shaker.
Spartan living is not really a hallmark of my family, either. My sister’s philosophy is that if you shop enough, anything you buy will eventually match something you own.
On the rare occasions when I have tried to cut back on clutter, I have lived to regret it. I gave away my platforms and they came back. I gave away all those ‘70s disco shirts with weird John Travolta collars and now they’re back.
But I was struck by a recent New York Times article about the hot trend sweeping the country: Voluntary Simplicity. These brave new downshifters are rejecting pushing-and-grabbing to search for a more nourishing way of life.
Elaine St. James of Santa Barbara described how she gave up her real estate job, threw away loads of stuff, moved to a smaller place, cropped her hair and now uses a rubber band around her money instead of a purse. Her closet contains one pair of black loafers, one pair of boots, two skirts, two pullovers, eight T-shirts and six turtlenecks. (Asceticism has its limits. She kept her BMW.)
Since I was moving, it seemed like a fine time to give Voluntary Simplicity a whirl. I wanted New Priorities. I wanted Different Tradeoffs. I wanted to Go Back to the Land. Well, no, but I definitely wanted to be more Thoreau, less DKNY.
Feeling virtuous, I began my new relationship with the universe in my kitchen, which had boxes of cookbooks and recipes sent by my mother when she still hoped I would transcend take-out.
When I moved out of her house, she equipped me for modern life with “How to Cook With Budweiser,” featuring recipes for “Beef Kidney with Budweiser” and “Chocolate Beer Cake” and tips on pouring: “The best technique is to place the neck of the bottle or lip of the can over the edge of the wetted glass and then tilt the bottle or can by quickly raising its bottom to a high angle. This action causes the beer to gurgle and agitate into the glass until a fine-textured head is created. Allow sufficient space for the foam to rise to the lip.”
She also gave me “365 Ways to Cook Hamburger” and “250 Irish Recipes,” including Collared Pig’s Head. (“Remove the eye from the pig’s cheek. Wash the cheek well in cold water, paying special attention to the nasal passages, eye cavity, and round the tongue and teeth, using a pointed knife where necessary.”)
She sent me booklets: “Waist Trimmers” from the Florida Celery Exchange, “Confessions of a Kraut Lover” from Empire State Pickling, “50 Wonderful Ways to Use Cheese” from the American Dairy Association, “Exciting World of Rice Dishes” from Minute Rice and “33rd Annual Chicken Cooking Contest” from the National Broiler Council.
I dumped it all in the trash - including the cautionary articles she had clipped (“How to Cope With a Hotel Fire,” “Staying Safe in Your Car,” “How to Brush Off Gum Disease”). But then I began feeling sentimental and retrieved the cookbooks. Cholesterol is due for a comeback.
Trying harder at voluntary simplification, I turned to my record collection. It was a time for tough choices. The original motion picture soundtracks of “Flashdance” and “Thunderball” and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had to go.
I tossed some books on the pile: “Learn to Play Tennis at Home,” “How to Write a Romance Novel and Get It Published,” a Katy Keene paperdoll book. I agonized about “How to Catch and Hold a Man” but decided that catching and holding was not simple.
More detritus from my years of involuntary complication: a dice clock from Las Vegas, a souvenir fish that says “I was in Reykjavik with Gorbachev and Reagan,” crummy presents from old boyfriends (a harmonica from the Great Wall of China and a chunk of meteorite oxide), my early attempts at poetry (“This is the end of my poem, Goodbye, I have to go home!”), old notebooks from Air Force One.
All this gone, and still no inner peace. Suddenly I realized that simple is empty. Clutter is beautiful. It is the stuff of memory, the evidence of an unexamined life that is worth living. I’ll do without a BMW, but I want my dice clock back.