Trash and treasure
Sunday, July 31, 2016 at 03:00AM I so rarely lose things that when I do, I feel unreasonably angry with myself. I bought some black leather gloves a couple of years ago; a necessity for my early walks throughout the Melbourne winter. I must have left them somewhere last spring; come the cold weather this year, they were nowhere to be found.
I glumly put on my crappy old gloves each morning – you know the kind where the tips of your fingers are still freezing – shoved my hands in my pockets or pulled my sleeves down over my hands like a teenager in a sloppy school jumper.
Then last weekend, we were doing what we’ve been doing a lot of lately – de-cluttering. The kids have left home; my husband has had a mongrel diagnosis, it’s the ideal time to start ridding ourselves of the detritus of 35 years.
The impetus for this latest purge was emptying our big upstairs room – traditionally a dumping ground for the household as it is out of sight and out of mind – for our older son and daughter-in-law to move back in briefly between overseas adventures. Their tiny CBD apartment was about the same size as our upstairs room; they shifted their futon and their desk and sofa and their lamps up there and fitted perfectly.
We got rid of most of what was there. Drum kit belonging to our other son went to his place (major score!) Big leather fold-out sofa went on gumtree. Two bookshelves and a chest of drawers went on the nature strip, and because it is Brunswick, they were gone in a matter of minutes. A box of old VCRs went to the op shop (yes, I know they will soon be valuable collectables, but life’s too short to hang on to stuff just in case).
One of the wonderful things about de-cluttering is that, as well as getting rid of things you haven’t looked at for five years and will never use again, you find some forgotten treasures. In this case, it was a cache of gloves that must have belonged to my mother, that I’d ignored in the last clean up thinking they were dress-ups for the kids.
Some of the gloves were falling apart, as I discovered when I lifted each one out for examination. And then – bingo – I pulled from the bottom of this mess of intertwined and disembodied palms and fingers, a beautiful pair of black leather gloves, a perfect fit for me, and way nicer than my previous Target pair. What’s more, they were lined in the creamiest white rabbit fur. Genuine leather. Made in Italy. Rabbit fur lining (which, at least in this country, I imagine is politically correct). Needless to say, I have worn these beauties every day since, revelling in having un-frozen hands on my way to work and back home again.
Meanwhile, the kids have moved back in and we have had an Irish houseguest for ten days and we feel like empty nesters no longer. It has been so much fun having the house buzzing with young-uns again, seeing at least two of the next generation of our family every day for a catch up, being reminded of how thoughtful and funny and domesticated they are.
Chucking out junk feels so good, I am freshly motivated for a new burst of sorting. There are a few more cupboards that need emptying, some boxes that wait to be gone through, my filling cabinet needs a good prune. And who knows, I might even unearth another old treasure.
Reader Comments (2)
De cluttering is all the vogue in the Warrnambool U.C. They are opening an op-shop tomorrow, in Liebig Street.. We blessed it this morning first during the service, then crossed over to the building.
If we went through the process Clare we could start our own Op shop as Marjorie documents. I doubt though that there are many treasures to be found. But what do you do with a collection that documents your life during all the years of the kids growing up? They are in assorted photo albums, frames, single photos and digital devices. I can't throw them out - they're history! But how to store and preserve them for a future generation that doesn't become their future junk is a unknown to me.