THE KEEPER OF THE CLUTTER, published LDR 02/18/17

My column in today's paper.
THE KEEPER OF THE CLUTTER
What do collectors, hoarders, savers, and clutterers have in common? I should know the answer to this question since my husband and I fall into all these categories to some extent or the other.

I often facetiously tell my friends that I could be the poster child for hoarding, but in all seriousness I don’t go that far. My dishes are always cleaned up (thanks to my industrious husband), I don’t collect empty cartons (except those left over from Christmas last year and which are destined for the recycle bin as soon as I can find someone to haul them away for me), and there are no “goat trails” through my house - not downstairs anyway. For those of you who, like my daughter, are minimalists and actually have bare shelf space in their homes, a goat trail is the term used for hoarders who pile stuff floor to ceiling, leaving only a narrow path to walk through the rooms.

So we can safely eliminate the word hoarding from my housekeeping flaws. Hoarding implies having a mental or psychological problem, anyway, and you all know that I am fairly sane or I couldn’t be writing these columns week after week, most of which actually make good sense.

These thoughts began rambling through my mind this week, as I started searching for a box in my office supply closet which I knew contained some old Valentines my Uncle Loran Dame had saved from the 1930s. I wanted to take a photograph and post it on my Facebook page in keeping with the theme of the week.

I keep the "Evernote" notetaking app on all my digital convenience gadgets which I use to stay sane, as described above, and I have a list of where almost everything is in my two story ten room house. The basement, the attic, the garage and the outbuildings are my husband’s bailiwick and I don’t even go there.

The sub-category in my Evernote program is called “Where is?” and by doing a search for Valentines, I was able to find the box. The display photograph is quite pretty and you can see it on my Facebook page.

It’s always a pleasure to look through old things. About half the Valentines had been purchased somewhere and the graphics were dated, but the ones I enjoy the most are the homemade ones - some drawn out on faded lined notebook paper, others written on the back of wallpaper scraps. My uncle must have been quite the “ladies man” back in his teens.

Why did he save them? Why do any of us save things that have only intrinsic value, i.e. the value an object has in itself, for its own sake. Again, I’m an expert here. We appreciate the beauty, the joy something brings when we look at it.

We appreciate the uniqueness of having something very few people have. I have three sheet music racks in my living room. You church singers and musicians probably remember sheet music. I still have the first piece I ever bought at Roderique’s Book & Music. Sheet music eventually went out of style. It was expensive and bulky to keep organized. So one day we were driving past the Lebanon Bible & Book Store right after they moved into their new building on the corner of Madison and Commercial, and I saw the old sheet music racks I had spent hours standing in front of in their original store on West Commercial. They had tossed them in the trash bin out back. Milan ran into the building to make sure it was OK if we took them. We considered them quite a find and I display much of my sheet music on them, with all the Bill Gaither songs at the top. They don’t make Bill Gaither sheet music any more!

I like to save things that I can relate to, or that define me in some fashion. Maybe that’s egotistical, but I am very transparent in letting others know who I really am - a personality trait which embarrasses my very reserved husband and daughter. When my good friend Aleen Eilenstein first came to visit me, she brought a wall hanging that said “Martha Stewart doesn’t live here”. I’m not sure that fits in with ego but it still hangs prominently on my wall, alongside the plaque that says “God blesses this house, but He doesn’t dust it.”

So that takes care of hoarding and saving. The collecting you already know about if you read my columns very often. Aladdin lamps for Milan, books and elephant figurines for me.

That brings us to clutter, another joy in my life - the joy which comes from finding things I had forgotten I had. I feel safe and secure when surrounded by my clutter. It is good clutter, some of it might even be valuable if I knew where it was. My only regret is that I am physically unable to curate my clutter. My husband also joins me in this plethora of everything clutter. He can’t throw anything away either. If I ever dispose of anything I have to hide it in the bottom of the trash bag and then lug it out to the bin at the curb before he sees it, otherwise he will rescue it, absolutely certain he can use it someday, somewhere, in some fashion, and save money by doing so.

Clutter doesn’t accumulate dust. You prevent that by continuously searching through it for the item you “just had in your hands a few days ago.”

Maybe its an obsession or just a personality quirk, but it’s okay with me if my tombstone marks me as the Keeper of the Clutter. I’m sure the angels are happy that you really “can’t take it with you” although I would guess there is a bare space on one of heaven’s shelves that needs the perfect knick-knack.