Choose a simplified life free of clutter
I always thought I didn't hoard, that I cast aside much of what I once thought was valuable. At least that's what I told myself. Perhaps the facts tell a different story.
Even though I've moved five times in the last 21 years and with each move have discarded what I once thought were priceless items and hated to see disappear from my trembling hands, I retained enough useless scraps to ignite several Halloween bonfires.
"Oh," I tell myself, "that will come in handy one day. Just consider its importance to my legacy when scholars, after I'm gone, search through my 'effects' and begin compiling for posterity all the documents and artifacts, attempting to write accounts of great Americans such as myself."
Staring at my desk now, I see a near-exploding folder of paid receipts, probably dating to the LBJ administration. But, to be honest, I haven't inspected that file since the Carter administration. Nonetheless, it's there for the taking.
Thirty-eight years of high school and college teaching generated enough paper (mimeographed handouts in faded blue ink, scrawled lesson plans, grade reports, performance reviews, notebooks of library research) to stack higher than The Great Pyramid of Giza. In 29 years of college teaching, I moved from office to office too many times to recall, each time keeping enough useless files to fill one medium-sized quarry pit.
From whence came all this? My childhood home's attic was a sight to behold, heavy-laden with my parents' objects, saved for reasons only The Great Almighty might discern.
"Hey, Mom," I'd say, holding some useless piece of junk, "what should I do with this?"
"Oh, just put it up in the attic."
I don't recall either parent going up there, me the winged messenger of all things sacred. I was told to transport all my elementary grade cards and brought-home scribbles from school.
"Put them in those big wooden cabinets," my mother would say. "I'm pretty sure your brothers' stuff is there, too." She was right, and I despaired looking over the A's on their grade cards, while my grades were nothing to write home about, so to speak.
After my father's death, when cleaning out the attic I considered discarding most everything. "Don't you want to save that?" a brother often asked. And I saved a lot, only to be toted around in many future moves, most tossed out along the way, hearkening back to Henry David Thoreau's dictum: "Simplify, Simplify, Simplify."
As a book buyer and book keeper, I guess I'm a hoarder — groaning and near-toppling bookcases, leaning towers of stacks on end tables and couches. And I still buy more.
At my last move, a sweating mover looked at the boxes nearly reaching the ceiling. "What is all that?" he asked.
"Books."
Shaking his head, "Why?"
Why indeed. Put simply, I guess there's no accounting for a hoarder's folly. Yet, that won't placate my children when I'm gone, as they scratch their heads and say, "He should have gotten rid of those books years ago." Sorry, kids.
I recently encountered Mary Ford-Grabowsky's writing, "... simple living is about freedom, a freedom to choose space rather than clutter, open and generous living... to choose less rather than more... choosing people, ideas, self-growth rather than guarding and possessing things... simplicity is a relaxed grasp on money and things... cherishing ideas and relationships."
Simplifying one's life is a tall order, acquiring freedom by "choosing less rather than more," but a goal much to be desired. Trying not to always go by (buy) the book.
Michael Pulley lives in Springfield. He can be reached at mpulley634@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Choose a simplified life free of clutter
