The Life Changing Art of Packing Up

Last updated on: July 7, 2016 at 8:03 am by Anne Kennedy

The Life Changing Art of Packing Up 2016-07-07T08:03:22-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Well, I’ve done everything I can do to avoid packing. Today is the day to face down the piles of clutter, the mountains of books, the fact that no matter how much I pray against the small lurking desire to kick Marie Kondo very hard for probably being right the bitterness of my spirit yet remains.

I do have a lot of stuff. And you know what, ALL OF IT BRINGS ME JOY.
That’s probably not true. But it feels like it right this second, in the very same catastrophic moment that none of it is actually going to bring me any joy. It’s only going to be a big ginormous pain to start shoving it in boxes and cursing the darkness.

The thing is, I really feel like–and again, feelings, so you don’t have to countenance anything I’m saying–the life changing art of minimalist tidying up is a little bit akin to shopping at Market of Choice and Whole Foods. How can I say this gently? It’s a sign of economic status. I noticed this again and again as I shoved us in an out of hotel rooms.

The rich have less stuff. They just do. Just like they get to eat less fattening food. I’m not, of course, speaking about real poverty. The person in the Nairobi slum could do with more stuff, more food, more real housing. I’m talking about the gentle middle class poverty of having to hang onto items that other people would throw away, or not bother with, because of wanting a reasonable standard of living.

I’ll just use my Tea Bin as an example. Know how when you go to a hotel they want to ruin your life by providing you with some tiny little plastic packet that supposedly contains coffee? You have to rip open the packet, somehow, and insert the fake coffee into the minuscule receptacle and somehow add water and then push the button. Then you stand there and swear softly, and then feel guilty for swearing. Yeah, so I don’t even drink coffee. I drink tea and that means that I traveled over five thousand miles with a small plastic bin. In this bin was layered a hot pot with which to boil an actual amount of water, a small metal tea pot and it’s cozy, a glass pitcher for milk, a ziplock full of tea, an emergency bottle of wine, two tiny tumblers, and a corkscrew. You’ve noticed an essential lack, I hope. The two tea mugs (one for me, one for my mother) had to be hand carried in from the car and washed every night, along with two thermoses–one good that could hold heat all day, and one bad that had to be drunk immediately we were settled back in the car or the tea would be cold.

In the morning I would fall out of bed, make tea in the pot, start drinking it down, and begin making tea in the thermoses– good one first, and then, because timing was so tricky, the second one almost right before we staggered out the door with all our stuff.

Because, tragically, we had to travel with So Much Stuff. Being poor we traveled not only with the Tea Bin but also with all the food that we needed for days and days, blankets and pillows, sleeping bags, piles of books we never had time to read, and probably some clothes and things.

If we’d been rich we would have gotten on a plane here and there to be harassed and molested by the TSA. Poverty has some advantages I guess.

Anyway, the point is, there isn’t always more where that came from. Sometimes you can easily replace something, but sometimes you really can’t because you don’t have the resources. It’s true that we moderns are drowning in the peculiar poverty of having too much stuff and too much food–that over abundant choices cripple and disable the mind and emotions, that generosity and kindness often leave young mothers sitting under heaps of baby clothes and toys, weeping because there’s no way to reach the front door. When Mary says that the Rich will be Sent Away Empty, she must mean me, empty of time and energy to unburden myself of the life wrecking clutter that overpowers my mental activity. But she must also mean the actual rich, whose pristine, longed for emptiness will ultimately be a great sorrow when there isn’t anything of worth–like affection and love–to fill it up.

Surely God, who gives all good things, and only good things, should have written some guidelines for figuring out which things Spark Joy. I’ve stored up piles of junk here in Binghamton. Will any of them last into that heavenly realm? Where rust and children do not destroy, and where all the china isn’t broken by carelessness and stupidity? Maybe I shouldn’t think about that today. Maybe I should just fill boxes.

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