I have been meditating on this quote quite a bit recently.
“Buy less” is in the zeitgeist, and so is every branded variation of de-cluttering.
Some of my clothes don’t fit my life anymore (and some probably don’t fit me at all). I have more craft supplies than I will use in this lifetime.
Truth be told, I like it that way. I’ve already downsized once, from the suburban single family to the compact condo in an urban high-rise, and everything fits in just fine.
But that’s back in Chicago, and for now I’m living in Dublin. Nothing jump-starts a good purge like walking in to an empty apartment with just the suitcases that came on the plane.
Furniture was here, but not much else, and the process of setting up house is very clarifying. Living with nothing inherited or accumulated gives you a great insight into how many towels and glasses you need and how many knick-knacks you really want in your space.
Here’s what I found out about us –
We need a lot of glasses for two of us, but wine tastes just as good in a juice glass (to me).
We need pillows, lots of pillows, pillows on the bed, pillows on the couch, pillows for our backs, pillows for our laps.
We more hangers than we thought. You can never have too many hangers, especially in a place where clothes dryers don’t really dry your clothes
And this one just for me –
I need things in my space made by my own hands. I can live with the neutral white, gray, vaguely Scandinavian basics, but I need color and texture and creations of my own to feel at home. So far the scraps and skeins I brought with me and a few locally sourced bits and pieces have turned in to hand sewn pillow shams, a crocheted blanket, and a lap quilt.
Walls are still too bare for my taste and there is always somewhere else to drape a quilt or a blanket. Since I have plenty of raw art material to work with, it’s really just a matter of transformation of stuff. When it works out perfectly, nothing goes out, but nothing comes in either.
It rarely works out that way.
(Originally published on my Substack)