clean up your stuff!(or should you?)

After reading Plum Johnson’s “They Left Us Everything,” (see What I’m Reading, April 10, 2024), I’m feeling torn about Marie Kondo, the tiny hyper woman who told us all to thank our stuff and then let it go unless it brought us joy. According to Plum, cleaning out her parents’ very large and cluttered home brought a new appreciation for her parents, their past, their love story, and her family history. She lovingly catalogued and sorted over a century worth of stuff, and it took her a solid eighteen months. She photographed favourite areas of the house and made a photo book.
Whereas my brother-in-law told his parents that if they didn’t clean out their basement, when the time comes, he’s lighting a match and throwing it down the stairs. Obviously, there must be an in-between point here.

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