Moving heavily

I feel ashamed when I look at my list of packed boxes: meticulously numbered and with content and destination neatly noted. I started this out very enthusiastically, being strongly advised to do so by my friends, but the variety of handwriting on the list stands witness to the help I had, especially towards the end and only days before the movers were due to arrive. 92 boxes.

I have no idea how I had managed to gather so much in the five short years I have lived in my city home! I don’t recall that the move into the house was such a big affair. We managed just fine by ourselves: using a couple of bakkies (ldv’s) and a couple of extra hired hands.

But somehow, the many cupboards and lovely, roomy spaces started filling up. To boot we installed a ceramics studio in the double garage with two huge kilns and many shelves, a potter’s wheel, work bench, slab roller and an industrial sized sink with two deep basins.

My ceramic work started spilling into the house as sculptures and other pieces were put on display everywhere. It was one of the reasons I chose this particular house: it would double beautifully as an art gallery.

The many built-in cupboards too had helped to clinch the deal back then. These were all stacked to the brim by the time we decided to move, not only my home content, but also George’s, as well as our respective workshops (his for metal and wood work) to Wakkerstroom.

To pack up this time round was the most daunting thing I have had to do. I would start in a particular room and fight back the despair and despondency only by simply carrying on. It seemed like an impossible task as I emptied out drawer after drawer , file after file, shelf after shelf with no end in sight.

I started noticing trends in my acquisitions: it could be sorted into categories or collections if you will:

· Rubbish: this category has-sub categories; Downright Garbage, Discardables, Beyond Repair, Outlived, Passed by sell/use date, Empty. Of course, much of this then gets re-categorized to Recyclables. We live in this day and age, after all!

· The Romantic Collection: hat boxes with quaint hats and gloves from bygone days, old suitcases filled with Christmas tree decorations, photographs, old greeting cards and letters as far back as my first birthday, my children’s first artworks, certificates, school rapports, christening robes, first shoes, milk teeth. Sub-collection here boxes filled with writing, letters, artwork and embroidery by my late mom.

· The Craft Collection: Boxes with equipment and materials for sewing, embroidery, knitting, painting, ceramics, glass painting, mosaics, drawing, decoupage, teddy bear making, modge podge.

· Stock: Kitchen pantry contents, Enough bath salts, soaps and body lotions to last a lifetime in the exceptionally large bathroom cupboard, courtesy of my pampering friends over the years. Again here I had to apply the sell by/ use by date criteria and sadly move some to the Rubbish pile. Studio stock including bags of clay, buckets of glaze, oxides, raw materials.

· The Office Collection: Stationery (12 rulers for some reason), a lot of paper ranging from regular typing paper to ones that make me go weak at the knees because of the colour or texture, printer and scanner, computer, many, many files containing accounts, ideas, overseas trip memorabilia, guarantees of purchases, gardening, home and car insurance, writing.

· The Library Collection: Mountains of books covering healthy living, cooking, nature and travel, herb gardening, art and architecture, spirituality, poetry, biographies, novels, classics, crafts, feminist writing, children’s books, bibles, dictionaries, map books, books on writing. Boxes of journals, magazines and sketch pads.

· The Kitchen Collection: Utensils and equipment for cooking, baking, preserving, small appliances, cleaning equipment and materials, washing machine, fridge, glassware, dinnerware, cutlery, pots and pans, flasks, casseroles, sushi mats.

· The Linen Collection: Table linen, bed linen, dish cloths, towels, blankets, eiderdowns, pillows.

· The Art Collection: Many sculptures and a lot of wall art.

· Not to mention the usual furniture likes beds, desks, tables and chairs, a mirror of gigantic dimensions, a very heavy kitchen island and a couple of old fashioned wardrobes.

· Outside the garden shed held more than I could ever have imagined, ranging from buckets of old paint left by the previous owner, waterproofing materials, odd pieces of wood, tiles and pipe, garden equipment, the lawn mower, general tools and a lot of the above mentioned rubbish . Also in the garden: garden hoses, many potted plants, a bird bath and again a few sculptures.

Even after a lot of clearing out, giving away and cutting down, there were still too many things being loaded into the moving van. As the truck pulled away, I felt exhausted but I also had an underlying feeling of dissatisfaction with myself. “This is no example of simple living. I tread much too heavily on this earth. I weigh too much to travel light,” I said to myself.

How did it get to be like this? I loved the spaciousness of the house when I first walked into it. And then I cluttered it with me.

Arvind Devalia, in a guest post on the site Zenhabits, tells that Gandhi, when he died, possessed less than ten things which included a watch, spectacles, sandals and an eating bowl.

“He was a man of non-possession and didn’t even possess a house.”

I’m no Gandhi by a long shot, my vocation in life as an artist entails that I need and use things to create what wants to be created, but I want to heed Gandhi’s words:

“You may have occasion to possess or use material things, but the secret of life lies in never missing them.” ~Gandhi

Matilda