Death Cleaning

 

It's almost a month now since I made a trip to Bath to meet up with the youngest. I opted to travel by train which took 5 hours but as I would easily have spent that long driving there, it seemed the more sensible option. Normally I would have loaded myself down with paperbacks for the journey there and back but in this instance opted for an iPad with downloads from the library including an audio book.

Although I do tend to borrow any number of books digitally from the library, I confess that an e-audio book was a first for me. That said, it was the perfect option. I popped my earphones in and not only was the content delivered up directly but I also got to watch the passing scenery through the window at the same time.

My choice of listening was a little strange but it was a book that I've been meaning to look at for some time: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson read perfectly by Juliet Stevenson. The book is sub-titled "How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter" and although I learnt very little new, I understand that it has spawned any number of books expanding on the theme and clarifying the method. The author believes that we ought not to burden our loved ones with the need to dispose of our possessions when we pass away and that instead we should all feel obliged from our mid-sixties to start the process of decluttering in earnest with a view to freeing our next of kin from the task. She also encourages us to undertake those difficult conversations about death and to pass on treasured items whilst we are still alive, warning, however, that often what our nearest and dearest most covet and want to take under their wing are not necessarily items deemed valuable but rather those with the greatest practical use. I can empathise having used a dibber that belonged to my father and a fork of my grandmother's in my garden for many, many years.

Her emphasis on the need for us to take responsibility for the mass of items that we accumulate during our lifetime and start to take sensible steps to reduce them resonated sufficiently that following my return home I have spent many dusty hours in the garage seeking to tackle the worst of our purposeless excess (the plastic bottle and cardboard box collections are but two prime examples). Although older than me, Mister E has taken little interest in this latest pursuit save for visiting me in the garage from time to time to check that I am not throwing away anything that might come in useful! There are obviously some people who can embrace this decluttering lark and others who clearly can't.

Of course, it does lead to a dilemma of even handedness. If Mister E won't death clean, should I? I think yes, because looking at the mountains of rubbish, I'm going to need the practice. As for those conversations with the next generation, will the eldest and youngest really aspire to taking over our spurious collections of good wood, odd bits of piping and vinyl floor off-cuts? 

Against that background, I had a really good day today and visited my favourite place: the local tip or, to give it it's full name, the Household Waste Recycling Centre. We are now a dozen almost empty paint cans lighter, freed too of a pile of broken small electricals and a cat scarer that was never scary enough. Unidentified rusted metal bits have gone to a better place and I watched as the shelving from an old fridge along with a kitchen bin with a large hole in it and some of those vinyl off-cuts were flattened in a skip with an electrically operated crusher. 

Can life get any sweeter? Only when we have a minimalist garage perhaps.

(Image by Nathan Copley from Pixabay)