I come from a family of pack-rats and collectors. My mother's house is filled with gifts from her friends—candles, little angel statues, etc.—and so reluctant is she to offend a friend, she hardly ever gets rid of anything. If a gift isn't useful or aesthetically pleasing to her, she simply stows it in a closet or drawer. Whatever display space is not occupied by friends' gifts gets filled up with family photographs and tchotchkes of her own choosing.
My sisters collect things—Depression glass, Firestone dishware, teapots, oil lamps—and I myself have been blessed/cursed with the collecting gene; loving the written word as much as I do, I'm prone to furnish my surroundings more with books than with furniture. My apartment in Houston looked like a used book store: every inch of shelf space stuffed, coffee table and nightstand strewn, mini-towers of tomes stacked against walls. Where there weren't books, there were films, because if my spare time wasn't occupied by reading, it was spent watching my favorite movies over and over again. Moreover, like any other healthy, normal female, my closet was fairly choked with clothes and shoes, most of which I wouldn't wear for months or even years at a time.
Every so often I would look around at the semi-organized wreckage that was my apartment and, momentarily contrite and not a little disgusted, I would vow to throw out every garment and pair of shoes I hadn't worn in two years, every film I wasn't that crazy about, and every book I had already read. And, indeed, I would gather a few articles and give them to the Salvation Army or Half-Price Books, feeling virtuous—then I'd realize I had hardly made a dent in my plethora of possessions, and I was still buying books and clothes to replace the ones I had given away. So, naturally, I would rationalize (at least as far as the books were concerned): "Most of my books are out of print and really, really hard to find. I just can't get rid of them; I know I'll read them again. I mean, would I throw out a cat no one else wanted?"
Eventually, and quite literally, Divine Intervention saved me from being drowned in my clutter. As I wrote in an earlier post, I felt a call to enter religious life. When I got accepted into a contemplative monastery, I of course had to get rid of all my earthly possessions except for the most basic and necessary—personal things that can't be used in common, such as toothbrush, underwear, etc.—and in order to make the process less wrenching, I adopted a mantra: Ruthless. I must be ruthless. As I sealed each boxfull of precious books and labeled it "Salvation Army" I would mutter, "Ruthless!" Purses crafted of Italian leather, triumphantly snatched up for a song at my neighborhood T. J. Maxx, were handed over to eager friends with, "Use them in good health (ruthless )!" Jewelry from QVC, CDs collected with care over the course of my career, all perused and appropriated by friends and co-workers (ruthless, be ruthless ).
At the end of my despoilment, I surveyed the relative starkness of my apartment and thought, why on earth didn't I do this earlier? Why did it take a religious vocation to spur me into action and unburden myself from the tyranny of possession? For suddenly I felt lightened and enlightened. I was free! I really didn't need all those things !
Some weeks later, in the monastery, I surveyed the starkness of my cell: there was a bed, the simplest kind; a small writing table and wooden chair, a narrow closet for my three habits, enough drawers and cabinets for my underclothes and basic toiletries, and a small sink. What more did I need? Even if I had remained "in the world," would I really need much more than that?
Now that I am indeed back "in the world," my answer to that question is still "no," but a slightly qualified "no." Yes, I am determined not to have more clothes and shoes than I actually need. I no longer buy jewelry. My one sturdy, basic leather purse serves me just fine at all times of the year, with any outfit. I was never a huge cosmetics consumer, and even less of one now—I keep my face clean and my hair short. However ....
I have rebuilt—not to their former extent, but to a considerable one—my library and my film collection. Some things are just so much harder to do without.
I like to think we are caretakers of the past, but not because of the age of the collectibles, but because some lovely, representative objects are endangered. Losing them would diminish our connection with the era they were created in. I hold a piece of Depression Era glassware,and I hold it along with the hands that first took it out of a box of cereal or detergent. I eat from it, as others have six, seven decades ago. I co-own it in a spiritual sense.
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