Having given up my job and therefore sorted and emptied the artroom of my teaching stuff, now I am making a start on sorting home stuff out ready for the big move. We moved into our Leytonstone home almost seven years ago and seem to have accumulated a lot of new stuff since then as well as the old stuff. A few weeks ago I spent two entire days shredding and in the end resorted to burning some paperwork in the chiminea just to get it all gone. Why did I keep bank statements for ten years anyway? That isn’t the kind of stuff worth moving and from now on it’s all online, I promise!
This week I have given away, donated and re-homed a whole pile of stuff in order to make our new life less cluttered and save on the effort of unpacking things I never use, don’t need or don’t really like. But I am not good at being ruthless and find stuff fascinating. Bear in mind I have been an art teacher for many years, used to scavenging skips to fill art stockrooms and collecting strange items to challenge students with weird still life groups. Also I have a thing for stuff that remind me of people from my past. So I have wasted a few hours over the last few days worrying about donating my Great Aunts old hats and bags to a charity shop (they lived in the art stock cupboard for seven years and never saw the light of day). I have kept Great Grannies Victorian shoes of course. Then there are the books I never look at but love to have on my shelves. I eventually donated about twenty books; most were old lonely planets for places I never got around to visiting. The art and cookbooks didn’t even get looked at. They are coming with me.
When it comes to stuff it seems some things never change. I am never going to be one of those people who gives all their stuff up, well not without a fight. But the stuff I love is the stuff that holds memories, stories or history. Stuff, when handled, that becomes a voice telling me something I want or need to hear. So me and the stuff are moving to Folkestone and I for one can’t wait to open those boxes when we arrive and welcome my stuff into my new home.
change is a wonderful thing 