Boost: mrissa usefully ponders minimalism

[jesse_the_k]

mrissa posted The exact right thing

It's about knowing exactly what you're going to need and having only that. Not the stuff you thought you might need, or the stuff you thought looked cool when you were twenty and now you're forty-one and you're less sure. Not the stuff someone else thought you might need. And especially not the stuff someone else thought looked cool and it was never really quite right for you but also not wrong enough to get rid of. Just exactly the right stuff, exactly where you can get to it.

Living life inevitably comes with baggage--emotional baggage as well as physical. If you're a person who reaches forty without things and people in your life, that itself is emotional baggage, that itself is a story. Even if you're happy that way, it's a set of things that have happened to you and ways you've reacted. When we were packing up wedding presents into a U-Haul to move to California when I was 21, my uncle sighed and said, "When I was 21, I could just...throw my guitar in the backseat and drive off into the sunset," and I said, "Uncle Pete, I'm a pianist." Which is symbolically as well as literally true; I was never going to be someone who had a guitar and a kit bag for her entire life.

Comments

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

The journey taken is part of the destination.

When I was 21, I didn't have a car. I've had Uncle Petes think it hilarious I was "reenacting the 60s" because I lived in a building without washers and the laundry mat was several miles away.

That's very different than older women commending me as I was unloading a U-Haul by myself.

[cynthia1960]

Oh, this is great.

[esteefee]

This is so tough for me. I mean, I think minimalist homes are so pretty, but then there's me. I still think radiometers are as cool as I did when I was 12, and mine serves no actual purpose but to spin 'round and 'round, and then there's my set of graduated flasks that belonged to my dad -- I use the Ehrlenmeyer one for watering my plants but the other ones...are just so nifty, like, invite Sherlock Holmes over! We can start the experiment anytime. And I have drawers and drawers of just...wires and gadgets and dongles and magnets and velcro and nubbins and gaskets and snozzwangles and wangdoodles...should anything go wrong at 2am or I get a hair up my ass to reconstruct my turntable, I'm ready! I have my soldering iron, 3 types of solder and a magnifying stand! I have three tool chests in my apartment and another two in my garage storage space! Want to paint? Stain? Unhappy with the pot your plant is in? Try one I made. And I have bags of potting soil in the storage bin on my fire escape...

I live in an apartment, btw, not in a house. *sigh*

[jesse_the_k]

Graduated flasks are beautiful!

You're ready for the DIY Apocalypse, when Wraiths take over the home supply stores.

your icon *sob*

[esteefee]

ohhh and then there were the thousands of books I gave up when my brain went bad, but that's another story. my life is much more minimal now, actually!

Re: your icon *sob*

[jesse_the_k]

Yeah, I've just counted 50 running feet of books that I really won't be reading again and can't bear to think of shedding but ....

*sobs some more*

Re: your icon *sob*

[esteefee]

*hugs you*. It took me a couple of years to resign myself to it. I did keep my OED and larger reference books, my signed books, my Star Trek collection, and anything older than 1900. But that still left a shitton of books I can't read anyway so I kept coming back to what's the point? Keep them as pretty wall paper? To remind me I can't read? Yes, they are a huge part of my identity, but not anymore if they're taking up 50 feet of wall space.

I entered them all into a gigantic spreadsheet so I can try to purchase or find electronic versions, and I donated them to the Friends of the SF Public Library. It took an entire miserable month, but I felt lighter after it was done.

Re: your icon *sob*

[jesse_the_k]

Turning the books into data and then letting them float away is a brilliant idea.

The LibraryThing mobile apps simplify this -- scan the book's barcode with my phone and presto! It's saved.

(Right now my speedbump is that I have some rare books, which should go somewhere special, but if I simply let them float away with the rest then I will be creating a delightful find for another book hunter.)

Re: your icon *sob*

[esteefee]

The LibraryThing mobile apps simplify this

aaaaa now you tell me! you are a rare and wonderful resource.

I think...keep the rare books for now if it's blocking you? I mean, I still have an entire row of Star Logs, as I said. Whyyyy? Well, because I've had them since I was 8? Some of them have duct tape that I carefully applied to the binding when I read them so much they started falling apart. And as if I'd give up The Making of Star Trek and all those gag memos about Vulcan naming conventions.

[dogstar]

... I have 6 looms. And my yarn stash is pretty small for a weaver, which still means it takes up like 7 or 8 plastic storage totes. Plus the sewing machine. And all my felting supplies. And fabric stash and.. yeah.

I hear you!

[jesse_the_k]

My beading stash occupies thirty tackle boxes -- not counting the findings and wire and thread and ....