Moving is stressful. Everyone says it.  I lined up a few weeks to do the move out of the house/studio upstate at a leisurely pace.  But the last week was a s—show for sure.  Mess and mess.  And rain delays. I was stressed about the storage place and its ability to keep precious items dry and safe. The bigger weight came with my added mind noise, going into this whole philosophical space about STUFF.  Stuff of which we have a lot.   I am in the unusual place of having already purged my childhood home in my early twenties when my dad died.  So, the mom’s china and family heirlooms that couldn’t fit into small NYC apartment went into storage.  Then, when we rented the little place in Saugerties, it was not big enough to bring out such items so I continued on with items in storage.

Now, we let go of small house and took on another storage unit.  My dream of a big house continues where I can put said items and spread out.  But in the thick of the move, and even now in a corner of my mind, I think about belongings.  What we hold on to, what he hold dear, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  Averse to hording and clutter, especially growing up in the chaos of my dad’s hording mess, I still hold on to a lot.   I have to.  As an artist, as an orphan, and yet the question arises, “what is it all for?”  It’s not an answerable question, more one to ponder.

The challenge of small apartment living skews the issue. What seems like a lot in small one bedroom is not a lot in small house.  I don’t like clutter nor do I like stark minimalism. I’m in between. I even think that, should I have a giant house to fill in the near future, Id’ still be inclined to keep most of what is in storage now in one room, contained and stored, just to have, like as a reference.

I have taken to taking pictures a lot which has helped. I don’t need said item but a picture of it works in many cases.

My father threw out nothing.  That sucked and was gross.  But it left me with some nice gifts upon his death.  I got to know more about my mother for one thing.  We hardly spoke of her after she died but her stuff, hidden away under piles of clutter in his room gave me huge insight.

The happy medium would have been to get through it sooner and get rid of it, while he was alive so questioned could be answered and our burden could be lighter.

That is what too much stuff can do when not organized.  Weigh one down.  And that is the key for me.  To find the balance of weight so that stuff is useful and valuable.