Stuff

I had occasion to be in my shed this past weekend. (Well, I say ‘shed’, it’s really a 5x6 closet in a building in our parking lot with a whole bunch of other 5x6 closets belonging to other unit owners, but I find it easier to refer to it as a shed.) So I was in the shed looking for my old ballet workbook from when I was in high school.

I’m just going to draw attention here to that last bit, “from when I was in high school”.

The first thing to say is that yes, my ballet teacher did create a workbook for us, which we used in addition to Gail Grant, and we had written tests on the material. The second thing, the “from when I was in high school” thing, is really what I’m getting at, here. This workbook is something I have kept. It has moved houses with me several times. There were ample opportunities to get rid of it, and yet, it remains. It is of no practical use to me anymore.

WHY IS THIS THING STILL IN MY SHED?!



It’s not even in the house. That’s how important it is. It lives in the shed. THE SHED. If I need it so badly that it lives in the shed until I remember it exists and dig it out as a novelty to show my current ballet teacher, does it really still need to be physically in my life at all?

I am a big fan of the periodic Get-Rid-Of-Shit-Palooza. I have one of these at least once a year. I don’t like to hoard things for which I have no use. And yet, here we are. There is a box in my shed (just the one) full of books and paper items that I don’t care enough about to have in the house, yet I can’t seem to part with them. My high school yearbooks, a few college textbooks I thought ‘might come in handy someday’, old kiddie classwork, some photos that my mom never got into albums...it’s all just sitting there in a box taking up space.

I suppose it could be worse. Far worse. For the most part, my shed holds shed-type things; the Christmas box, my luggage, a bicycle (which I am actively trying to get rid of), foldable lawn chairs and an ice chest, a camp stove, leftover paint. But even for someone who detests clutter, I do still seem to hang on to things I probably don’t need. Puppets I’ve made but don’t want to display in the house. A PVC-pipe-and-old-sheet shadow screen, an overhead projector, and a box containing the 40-foot scroll of acetate scenery and about a hundred tiny shadow puppets from when my mother and I did a few performances of Jean de Brunhoff’s Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant, as set to music by Francis Poulenc. The likelihood of us dusting off that show at this point is slim to none, but still, once you’ve made 78 infinitesimal jointed poster board elephants you do not want to do it again. Ever.

Sentimentality is definitely a problem, but so is the normal human behavior of acquiring stuff. We do it without thinking, really. Clothes, books, random kitchen utensils; it all adds up. As someone who has in recent memory assisted with the cleanout of the homes of two sets of grandparents, I can tell you one thing: if you don’t keep your stuff-collecting in check when you’re alive, everyone will hate you when you die.

Of course, I have a current clap back, which is that clearly saving that ballet workbook all these years was worthwhile because now I get to share it with other ballet people for the purposes of discussion...and probably laughs. Some of the things my mother (who is even more allergic to clutter than I am) kept from my younger years are actually pretty cute. Apparently I won second place in a poster competition in kindergarten, the prompt for which was “Fill in the blank: Every dog deserves ________.” My answer was that every dog deserves a name. That’s pretty philosophical for a five-year-old.



Still, I’m becoming increasingly aware of things in my possession which really don’t need to be. It’s probably time for another clear-out. Goodbye, random holiday stuff I never use. Goodbye, strange kitchen utensils that serve only one purpose, and not even a very good one at that. Goodbye, ancient paperwork from accounts that don’t even exist anymore because we’re waaay past the IRS “Keep It Or Else” date.

NOT goodbye, old video tapes of my dance shows. Someday I’ll get you converted to DVD. NOT goodbye, photos from the Gilroy High School Chamber Singers 2004 Germany/Czech Republic Tour, even though none of them are that great. NOT goodbye, sixty-gajillion elephant shadow puppets.

But if any of you utter the name ‘Marie Kondo’ at me, I will CUT YOU.