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Wednesday, January 25, 2023

I say, “To hell with it!”

 

I call this cozy and inviting.

To hell with minimalism, I'm saying. You can have it. Just be sure it's what you want.

 

Books and websites selling “the new minimalism,” often simply called “decluttering” and “simplifying,” like to tell us we can’t buy happiness. Let’s think about that. Okay. You can’t buy happiness, neither can I, but — think about this with me, please — I believe it's possible to throw happiness away and regret it later.


These things speak to me daily.

Follow the link here and look at the top image on this internet site. If that looks like a cozy, restful, snug and happy refuge from the world to you, read no further in my post today. On the other hand, if you are an inveterate hoarder — that’s another whole ball of wax — then you should go back to that link and follow the steps to clean up your act, because no one wants to have friends or family members living in absolute squalor. Hoarding is a sickness. Heal thyself!

 

Coming back from my digression, though, don’t we all know that hoarding vs. minimalism is a false dilemma? Collecting is not hoarding. And while most of us, I’m guessing, are not serious, committed collectors, with homes that could be mistaken for museums, neither are our homes junkyards, simply because we prefer more visual stimulation and activity than minimalism offers. 


Colorful tins, that's all.


Found objects


Little things




I bought him the box; he bought me the cow.


As for me, I look at bare, minimalist-“decorated” rooms and wonder if lives are being lived there at all. As I have written before on this blog, the Artist and I together were never minimalists. Our life together was rich, although that life, as well as the one I have now, could well be called a simple life“Too many books”? To me, that sounds like “too much art,” i.e., an oxymoron of the first order. 


Yes to books!

Yes to art!


When my sisters and I had to clear out our mother’s house, we did think she had “too many clothes,” it's true, but none of us were sorry she had kept boxes of photographs, letters, and other personal mementoes, some of which we had never seen before. I wrote about that and about how much it meant to see a scrapbook my mother had started back when she and our father had their first date. 

 

I have saved old letters myself, and along with several albums of photographs I also have piles of loose photos, as did the Artist – and I am keeping all of his, along with my own. He loved his memories, and I love mine, and we shared many wonderful years. Why would I “declutter” my life by throwing out reminders of happiness when I can, through those reminders, re-live more youthful times, our years together, as well as years before we met? 


A little messy but full of life!


Paintings, prints, and photographs on the wall; books on the shelves; a beautiful, “useless” vase; perfectly shaped bowls; little collections of tins and boxes; a row of cowboy boots here and hats hung there; even the ubiquitous scattering of stones on a windowsill that all northern Michigan people seem to have (is that “in our DNA,” as people are so fond of saying nowadays?) – my surroundings are brimming with associations that tell me in a thousand ways of the richness of my life. 


Mine (need polishing)

His --


“Declutter”? You first! What happiness is left to me, I will not be so foolish as to throw away, and I can imagine people today falling for the minimalism fad and wondering on some tomorrow years from now whatever possessed them. “I’d give anything if only I still had my mother’s high school ring ... my father's letters ... that sketchbook from our trip to Paris!” 


Obligatory photo of Sunny Juliet!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

You. Nailed it

Jeanie Furlan said...

🎶🎶 Mem-‘ries, Light the corners of my mind, Misty watercolor memories, Of the way we were 🎶! That is what came to my mind. Your shelves, the old presents, the hats, leather bags, leather boots….the books! Yes, you nailed it, and your writing and photos are just a delicious diving into who you are , who David was, and how you live now and how you lived together. I’d love any corner of your place and would look over every detail and want to know the How, the Where and the When. I embrace your Memory-ist/ism, (not Minimalist!) certainly not too much of that at all. I love our Brooklyn 1 BR, 4th floor walk-up because of lots of my past, my father’s redone chairs, old sheet music books - Chopin - and Antonio’s and my past, all over on walls and shelves. Books, too! Long Live our Memories!!

Anonymous said...

So right. I feel comforted and comfortable with our "things".

P. J. Grath said...

I’ve spent a little time this morning reading criticism and defenses of minimalist art, aesthetic, living, etc. For some people, minimalist living means simplifying life by living in smaller spaces, being debt-free, and not purchasing expensive, unnecessary luxury items. Interesting variety of perspectives.

This winter I am living in a one-room cabin. Back home, I have no mortgage. A car loan I had for less than a year (the first one in decades) is paid off. (NOT a new, big, “luxury” car!) As for expensive luxury items, the Artist and I never had the wherewithal to go in for that kind of thing. But I don’t call my life “minimalist” for that reason: I just call it “simple.”

As for minimalist art and aesthetics, there is certainly a Zen beauty to them. David and I loved the serene images in KATSURA (see https://booksinnorthport.blogspot.com/2016/03/travels-to-japan.html if interested in some of those images), but at the same time we knew it was not for us. If it’s for you, that’s fine. But there we are talking generally about expensive simplicity.

One old friend of mine and her husband had a meditation room, and that room was minimalist. The rest of the house the husband had built was not. What impressed me more than anything else was their compost system: a little door over the kitchen counter with a motion-operated fan to throw vegetable waste (they did not eat meat) directly into a compost room, which was then shoveled out at regular intervals to be spread on the garden. There was also a miniature water garden next to the kitchen sink. Their general lifestyle was not minimalist, but it was a simple, beautiful life.

This morning I see clutter on a table that “should” be bare except for a single placemat. It will be the work of a minute, however, to clear it off. No big deal. A cold wind is howling and battering my mountain cabin, but it’s pretty cozy here inside.

Peace.

Karen Casebeer said...

Enjoy your space, however you like it! I'm not a minimalist, for sure, but I don't like a lot of clutter either. And your comment about throwing away and regretting it later, resonated with me, unfortunately. I've thrown out old pictures before the digital age and do wish I had those back now.

Anonymous said...

Love this—thanks!

Emita Hill said...

I love it and could have written it. Books everywhere, photo albums still being updated, letters (all in cursive) from so many friends, relatives, loved ones . . . travel souvenirs and gifts in my travels . . . Everywhere I look there are good memories that will be with me and a part of me as long as I live.

Dave Dean said...

One of the things Dave and I shared... Thanks Pamela.

P. J. Grath said...

Obviously, there are a lot of us nonminimalists or anti-minimalists. As for clutter, in my spaces it tends to be time-limited. For example, right now I've got a lot of things on the table, but this afternoon I'll clear all that off and put things where they belong, and it will be the work of minutes. I always remember David saying of the home of friends of ours, with projects spread all over the place, that it was a house with a lot of living happening in it.

Angie said...

Yes, oh yes, add me in the maximalist column. I am all about books, and fabrics, and more books—-of all kinds. LOL. I can’t begin to tell you how many individuals in my family alone have walked in and said “ you need to get rid of some of these books and those fabrics.” LOL. Not happening. I continue my love affair with books and fabrics, and I’m finished try to justify or apologize. LOL. And I think your place there is just my kind of space. Would love hanging out there. Warm and cozy and oh so inviting.

P. J. Grath said...

Angie, I love fabrics, too! Sadly, however, I hate sewing! Cozy -- now that is a concept the Artist and I both embraced wholeheartedly.