Coming to Terms with Clutter

Elephants for memory

My (rented) house in Moffat is full of clutter, and is getting more cluttered. I sprang out of bed this morning, determined to get a grip. The hallway is newly full of boxes of memorabilia from the house I grew up in and where my mother lived from 1939 until her death this March. I have a curious aversion to sitting in or working in a room with pictures on the walls, although I like a view. The walls of one downstairs room nicknamed 'the art room' are already choc a block. Therefore, the 25 or more additional framed photographs, prints and paintings from my mother's house will have to go into a room where I neither sit nor work: the spare bedroom aka the dressing room because it is also where I keep my clothes.

My first thought this morning - absurdly, since it was I who had chosen to keep the contents of the boxes and the other assorted bits of useful paraphernalia crowding out my downstairs rooms - was 'I must de-clutter'. We have been brainwashed by design magazines and weekend colour supplements into thinking that we ought to be living in spaces with immaculate clean lines in impeccable muted neutral colours. But as we get older, our possessions, our books and photographs, plates, mugs and spoons remind us of how and with whom our lives have been lived.  I am my clutter, mon debris c'est moi.

Trays's of the past