The Clutter

Why we keep things we do not need

Category: The Body

This booklet is for people who are surrounded by things. Too many things. Things they don’t use. Don’t need. Don’t even particularly like. But can’t get rid of. The things are taking up space, physical space, mental space, emotional space. The things are weighing them down.

When You Notice

You open the closet and things fall out. You’re looking for something and can’t find it because there’s too much other stuff in the way. You move into a new place and realize: half these boxes haven’t been opened since the last move. Three moves ago. You own multiples of things. Five coffee mugs for one person. Twelve pairs of scissors. The multiples aren’t intentional. They accumulated.

Storing Hypothetical Futures

You’re storing things for hypothetical futures. The fancy dishes for the dinner party you never host. The art supplies for the hobby you haven’t practiced in five years. The clothes for the body you used to have or hope to have again. Someday hasn’t arrived. Probably won’t. But the things are waiting. Taking up space. Just in case.

The Dread

Opening certain closets fills you with dread. You know what’s in there. Chaos. Overflow. Things shoved in because you didn’t know where else to put them. Things that need dealing with. You close the door quickly. Avoid looking. The dread is information. You’re ignoring it. You’re paying money to store things you don’t use. The absurdity is not lost on you.

Good Company

The Things They Carried — Tim O’Brien, 1990
O’Brien lists what soldiers carry, and the list keeps becoming a portrait. The book is the cleanest statement in English of the principle that objects are never only objects, and that what we keep tells the truth about what we are trying to hold.
Grey Gardens — Maysles brothers, 1975
A mother and daughter in a house filled with what they could not bring themselves to throw out. The film is not cruel about it. It lets the clutter be the visible shape of a long, particular love, which is also what most people’s clutter actually is.
Songs from the Big Chair — Tears for Fears, 1985
An album whose title comes from a therapy practice in which a person sits in one chair and addresses an empty one. A useful soundtrack for the work of looking at an object and trying to understand who you were keeping it for.