That’s Life By Nell Musolf
Downsizing, or maybe just bluffing our way through it I
’m not sure if it’s due to middle age or a visceral reaction to all of those reality shows about hoarders who live in absolutely horrifying houses, but I have entered a serious downsizing phase in my life. I suddenly no longer want to hold on to anything that doesn’t really matter to me and I really, really, really don’t want to dust it. It all started with the bookshelves in our family room. I’m a Kindle holdout so our shelves are crammed with books ranging from the Dr. Seuss books our sons used to read back in their kindergarten days to an autographed Joan Crawford autobiography that I bought for a quarter at a thrift store. These shelves also hold all of the reading material that my husband and I plan to read “someday.” Someday when we have the time, the will, and just the right lighting. Retirement, perhaps. Since we are both clinging tightly to our mutual dream of eventually moving to a place where we can head to the beach every morning holding a canvas tote full of books between the two of us, I haven’t been very discriminating about what books we keep and don’t keep. But as I recently dusted those bookshelves and moved pile after pile of books from one spot to another, it dawned on me that if indeed we ever do move to a beachfront property, why on earth would I want to pack boxes of books to bring with us when I could just as easily check most of them out of the local library in our lovely new beachfront community? With the exceptions of my very favorite Dr. Seuss books and Joan Crawford’s autobiography, many of our books went into bags earmarked for the local thrift store. As I worked, I remembered a former neighbor of ours who, when the downsizing bug bit him, held an unusual rummage sale. After filling his entire driveway with books, clothes, furniture and other various odds and ends, he plopped a bright pink sign at the edge of the lawn that read “FREE.” Within minutes people began to descend. Cars came screeching to a halt as people leaped out and scurried toward the piles of loot like seagulls swooping down on a freshly spilled box of saltines. Never having been averse to the four-letter word f-r-e-e, 28 • october 2013 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Mark and I strolled over to see just what our neighbor was getting rid of. In a word: lots. Lawn chairs, mowers, lamps and toys were all there for the taking. It was the best rummage sale I’d seen in a long, long time. Apparently everyone in our neighbor’s family must have been a reader because there was an impressive pile of books including several paperbacks about the cold-war exploits of “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.” But in addition to greed, there was also more than a touch of bittersweetness in the air and our neighbor seemed a little lost as he stood among the throng of people searching through his memories. “How are you doing?” I asked. “Bluffing my way through it,” was his response before he strolled away. I felt a pang of guilt as I looked down at the items I was holding. (Yes, I grabbed all of “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.” books). It can’t be easy to watch other people paw through your personal possessions, fueled by the all-toohuman desire to find something wonderful for absolutely nothing. The downside of downsizing is that in addition to getting rid of your stuff, in a way you’re also getting rid of your past. By the end of the day, our neighbor’s mountain of memories was reduced to a molehill of things that no one wanted, not even for free. From our living room window I watched as our neighbor threw what was left into a Dumpster. Then he ambled out to sit in his usual spot, underneath a huge maple tree, the place where he kept an eye on the neighborhood. He seemed a little sad, perhaps a touch defeated by the inevitable march of time. Now, several years later, Mark and I have begun the downsizing process, too. One of these days we’ll probably have our own rummage sale, although I doubt we’ll be generous enough to make it a free one. I just hope that when the time comes, we’ll be able to sell our history with as much dignity as our neighbor. If not, we’ll have to bluff our way through it too. M
Nell Musolf is a mom and a freelance writer from Mankato.