The Salvation Army drop-off center at 10 AM on a recent Monday morning was lined with six cars in front of me and within five minutes three more pulled up in back of me. Do they too know “the secret” to living a serene and well-ordered life?
My mom knew “the secret”. She made Marie Kondo – the Japanese professional organizer and author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – look like a hoarder. My mother held onto literally no extra anything, except my father’s World War 2 paraphernalia: duffle bag, dog tags and uniforms. She prided herself on empty closets – they made her feel good, she often told me. In retrospect, I think she was ahead of her time.
What is “the secret” to living a serene and well-ordered life?
Swedish Death Cleaning
The definition by Christine Carlstrom in her book Swedish Death Cleaning for Americans is that it’s a savvy and considerate approach to clearing out the excess in your life and surroundings and focusing on what is important to you.
It’s more than decluttering and organizing. It’s about living your life with intention, finding the perfect balance between too much and not enough, avoiding excess, preventing waste and planning your legacy.
Studies show de-cluttering has huge benefits:
- Enhanced productivity
- Release of emotional baggage
- Creation of space for memories
- Reduction in stress
- Improved safety of our environment (How many times do I have to trip over boxes of my grown sons’ kindergarten blocks while attempting to reach a piece of luggage before getting rid of the blocks?)
- Heightened sense of control
I did not get my mom’s particular genetic proclivity to minimalism. I’m not a hoarder, but I do hold onto too many things – thinking I may need them at some distant point in the future.
So, I have a lot of “stuff” and I have noticed that when chatting with my over-the-hill friends, our talk frequently veers toward acknowledging that our adult kids don’t want most of our “stuff” and agreeing that we should begin to divest of quite a bit of it NOW.
Hence, today’s debut column on Swedish Death Cleaning. The title is morbid, but it is anything but.
This Scandinavian practice aims to spare our loved ones the burden of sorting through a lifetime of belongings after our death. (I can tell you what my adult kids will do after my demise if I don’t have a plan in place: pack it all up and pitch it.)
WHERE TO START: Coming in next week’s column!
In the meantime, Keep Preserving Your Bloom if you can find it amidst the clutter!
Our jean jackets with artist extraordinaire Frida Kahlo’s likeness are going gang busters.
So imagine my delight when I found a t shirt at the thrift shop with her face on it.
Can’t wait to explore the many ways to display it one of our upcycled jean jackets! 