The Insidious Acquisition of Possessions

When you move you get to see everything you own. Five years ago when we moved to Spokane we threw out very little; we pretty much packed it in a box and moved it. That approach was necessary to get here without having huge disconnects in too many areas of our life at once. The downside is you haul around things you don’t really need. We filled two and a half of the largest U-Haul trucks they rent to move everything here.  

This time the goal is trim it down to a single large rental truck. This means a massive divesture of possessions. No problem. I am ready to move into a leaner, cleaner life in terms of my tangible belongings. This way we get the chance to distill our earthly belongings down to the finest, most necessary 40%. I am seizing this opportunity to purge my clutter, to purify this ever-growing constellation of crap that has been trapped in orbit around my personal gravity ever since I first grocked the word ‘Mine’. How did I come to have so much stuff? 

There is a word for the illness of packrat gone bad; where acquisitiveness is carried to such a degree that you only have paths through all the stuff in your house that you collected. I cannot remember the word, but I can understand how it begins. It starts innocently enough; your grandmother gives you a really cool pocket-sized collapsible coat hanger that folds up like a Transformer into a really nice little dense package. To open it, both sides swing out and telescope into steel rods that hold the coat. It’s finely machined, folded up it has that nice heft in your hand that feels just right. None of your friends have one, in fact you have never seen one before. To top it all off, it has a patent stamped on it that says 1903. It is really cool, and today it is yours. When you are 8 years old and you acquire such an item, your brain is suddenly bathed in the most wonderful reinforcing chemicals, you are in the throes of a peak experience and you know it. The experience becomes the sort of moment you want to relive again and again.  

By the time you are 18 you completely fill a carefully packed pickup truck when you go away to college. You might be poor, but you know what you like and it really does not have to cost a lot of money. A couple of years later, you meet this really wonderful girl who also has a streak of packrat in her.  You recognize a kindred spirit, and in short order you have a mate who understands and does not question the desire to acquire. All it takes is a few dozen garage sales here and there, antique stores, estate auctions, and packrat relatives dying, and before you know it, moving becomes a logistical nightmare. 

I still have that folding hanger. For the past few years it has displayed Margaret’s great-grandfather’s christening dress hung on the wall of our dining room. In my mind they symbolize the unity of two family lines with a rich heritage of not throwing things away. Both the hanger and the christening dress were carefully packed away and are not considered dross as we refine our belongings. Truly simplifying would be to get it down to a suitcase or steamer trunk. The goal is to get it pared down to one large truck. That should not be too much of a sacrifice, right? 

Funny thing, as I go through belongings and make this thinning pass, I come across items like the button collection, or antique books. These are things I might otherwise get rid of in this move, but I catch myself thinking, maybe a grandchild –if some happen to show up in the future– would take great pleasure from this little trinket. I could sell it for fifty cents now, or I could keep it for the day when I have the opportunity to pass on this hereditary illness, this streak of packrat… I carefully pack it away for safekeeping.