CUT THE CLUTTER - #WRITEAPAGEADAY #BLOGCHATTER

- February 15, 2023

Filling the Jars

If there is a phrase I have heard my entire life, it is “Cut the clutter!” We Army people find this extremely tough, the reason being that wherever we are posted, we tend to pick up artifacts just so that we can keep snapshots of the place in our minds.

As an Army brat, and later as an Army wife, I collected reams and reams of memories, being a writer. So, apart from my scrap books and my newspaper cuttings, along with greeting cards presented with love by my students and letters from loved ones, I already had a library of books which were worth more to me than all the clothes in my wardrobe.

Another wonderful saying that rings in my ears… “Collect moments, not things.” Easier said than done!

I can trace our journey from place to place when I cast a glance over the things we possess – crockery from Morvi in Gujarat, small carpets from Deolali from a certain gentleman who stocked items specially for Army folks, mirrorwork cushions from Bhuj, a dinner set from Baroda, chinar earrings and lacquer work from Kashmir, a Buddha figurine from Tenga, Arunachal Pradesh, bedspreads from Rajasthan and finally a beautiful sun shaped mirror from an exhibition in Chennai. The list could go on.

Dreamstime.com

At every station, we would stow away things in boxes depending on the size of our houses. The boxes themselves would miraculously turn into seats and diwans, covered with the aforementioned Rajasthani bedspreads.

Easy Organized Home

When it came to retirement, we found that one flat could not encompass all our belongings. Though my heart broke many a time, we gave away boxes of things, and the boxes themselves, especially since we realised that this was our final home. No more would we be shifting our entire luggage anymore. No sooner had we come to this conclusion that we found ourselves moving house once again. One last time!

My husband has a theory. When one thing comes into the house, another thing must be sent out. Sentiment does not come into it, he argues. Unfortunately, his magpie of a wife, and her sister, do not agree. Who knows when a certain thing will be of some use? Even after twenty-five years? Given that logic, we have a wooden table at home that is older than my husband, and it is being used extensively. So, you never do know, do you?

So many friends have turned to minimalism. “It is such a relief to give things away to people who need them!” they wax eloquent as they meditate in rooms that have suddenly grown in size because they have cut the clutter. On the other side, I peer into the life of those lucky people who have received the same things and find husbands groaning as they find their rooms shrinking only because they have not been able to say NO.

Once again, I turn to Marie Kondo for inspiration.

She talks of downsizing everything from clothes to kitchen items. However, she has an immensely large hearted approach to giving things away. She instructs her followers to hold every article to their heart and breathe a prayer of thankfulness to it for having served them so faithfully. I do imagine holding a cast iron pot close to me and intoning, “Thank you, dear pot, for the many years you have given me and my family happiness and fulfilment!” Of course, I would need to do it at a solitary moment lest I be thought a trifle weird.

Organized Pretty Home

At the moment I am writing this, my sister has just sent me a beautiful set of purple cookware… mera wala purple, as I always say, and I am understandably thrilled. In the background, I hear my better half’s voice say, “Ok, now you need to throw away three similar pieces from your kitchen!”