Spent yesterday afternoon helping Luke pack. After some lunch-style procrastination, we got down to the business. Of packing.
It's so hard deciding what to pack and what to keep. I should know; I've moved house so many times that my optician has a special record card for me. And I've moved countries a few times, too. Though the secret to working abroad is to never pack too much in the first place and make the company pay for whatever you forgot.
When I had a job/money, and realised my house was untidy but didn't really know how to deal with it, I had a preliminary phone conversation with a decluttering consultant. I know what you're thinking; there are better ways to spend your money. I agree.
She talked some kind of modern argot-cum-jargon that I didn't quite understand; "Letting go can be the hardest thing. We can spend some time looking at the issues. We can work through it."
I never know what "working though" something means: how do you know when you've got there? What if you can't see the wood for the throughput?
But I had to get off the phone from her because when she quoted the price I started giggling uncontrollably. I figured I could do a self-managing declutter project and spend the money on clothes.
I'm loathe to quote Vanessa Feltz - famous-for-fifteen-minutes for lots of things, but especially this - but her "more is more" quote during her ousting from the BBC made me think. Generally, I go for understatement - apart from when it comes to cleavage - and her in-your-face OTTness made me want to hide.
Back to the house-stuff thing. I'm often envious of people who have minimal homes and well chosen objets and no piles of paper and things they've been meaning to get round to for a decade.
I'm not a minimalist - I'm a maximalist. Not by choice; I just have a lot of stuff. Partly because I brought home interesting things from when I lived in Asia and other places. I've never done an audit, but I estimate that I have a few thousand books, and a few more since Luke pruned his collection prior to shipping.
And I have a hard time getting rid of books. I don't just want to reread a book; I want to reread the actual book I read on the beach in Cuba. Delayed in the airport at Bangkok. Riding the bus to that boring job. Books have memories for me; not only in terms of the stories they contain, but the physical book. It's like running into an old friend.
Anyway, I'm off to meet some bloggers - not my usual Sabbath-style-entertainment, but hey, I'm flexible - so, er, later…
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